The Shar-Pei Forums-Health Behavior Diet & Rescue Info and Discussion Group

Is there a way to keep my shar from shaking his head constently? We've been told it's his ears bothering him, but we keep his ears clean and dry. Please give some suggestions!

I don't really know if head shaking is a Shar-Pei behavior or not. All I know is that my Charlie would "shake" his head almost everytime we touch his face/ears or clean his mouth. He also had bouts of ear infection and I've been pretty goog in checking his ears and it looks clean & dry to me.

Maybe you can observe your pei some more and we can exchange notes...

My dog does exactly the same thing, and his ears are clean and dry as well. I hope it is a Shar-pei trait as it worries me as well.

sometimes its just an ear itch thing also.... but can be a bit down the cannel ! please try a hot compress to help sooth a bit.. and sometimes wiggle the cloth on the ear(not to hard) it sometimes helps and you will probly hear your dog do a sniffle like like saying* ohh thank you feels so good* lol ,l know they peis are not to favourable with getting ears cleaned.. l do the compress every other day,works for me.! hope it helps. kim

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kim

my vet still asks me to put gentocin in charlie's ears every week even though they look 'clean'. yeah, maybe there's still something deep down...

honestly, i'm not very convinced that it's just the ears. my charlie shakes his head after:
1. cleaning the slob off his mouth
2. playing with his ears
3. giving him a hug
4. playing with his wrinkles

so, i'm thinking that maybe he feels kinda superior and he's "removing" my scent?!? :confused:

kim, i'm not sure how the hot compress works... can you elaborate?

Mine shake their chops if their ears need cleaning and more so if they are infected - however you also will see that one ear is lower than the other normally - if they have a problem with their ears - so we don't just have to reply on the head shaking.

They do it though as well as part of their stretching routine, they will also shake after they have had their food - hopefully AFTER we have wiped their chops - otherwise we then have to clean up the splattered dog food from the walls!

They also have a canny nack of doing it just after they have a drink - or to de-slobber their chops when they get particularly drool laden when out for a walk - normally this makes us and any passers by jumps or run away to avoid the flying slobber! I think they use that as their secret weapon - I can just picture Daisy tipping Rolly the wink and when he is really slobbered up - she gives him the secret signal then it is 'shops away!'


Lets face it, if you had chops like a Shar Pei's and knew how much noise it makes to smack your chops - you would probably do it too. I don't thin it is just a Shar Pei thing - other big chopped dogs do it - remember turner and Hooch - the dogue de bordeaux (think that was the breed - huge browndog)

yeah - it's really difficult when there's dog food splattered all over the wall! and my charlie doesn't drink water right after eating so food particles really get stuck in his big mouth! either i clean his mouth or the wall every feeding time.

<small>[ August 10, 2004, 08:42 PM: Message edited by: LNT ]</small>

This may be a dumb question, but how do I know if one ear is lower than the other? It's really difficult to tell.

I can tell when my shar has an ear problem when his ear looks "lower." It's kind of easy to tell. When they're sitting down, look at the ears, it will look as if his head is tilted when really his ear is "sagging."
I think I just figured out how to stop most of the head shaking. I took a warm damp cotton ball and cleaned out his ears. And then I took a dry cotton ball to dry them out. He hasn't been shaking his head since. I think he enjoyed the warm cotton ball instead of a cool cloth. I also set a warm wash cloth over his ears and face...he really seemed to like that as well. :toast: