Thank you SO much everyone for your emails & comments giving me feedback on the blog problems (again, please forgive me for not replying individually to thank you all!)
Gosh, I never realised so many people were having so much trouble and especially with seeing or leaving Comments! I had noticed that our comments had dropped since moving to the new site but I thought this was because people were busy & not visiting or not so interested in our posts…I was horrified to find that lots were making the effort to leave comments (sometimes several times!) but we never got them! Where are all those comments disappearing to?? 
Anyway, the only support I could get from WordPress has suggested that it might be the theme I’ve chosen that’s causing the problems – which means that we will probably have to change our theme. I can GUTTED as I really love the “cloudy” theme with its cartoon-like style, cute font, blue & white colours…but I think we have no choice but to try something else.
So I’d be really grateful if you could help me again. I have installed & am trying a new theme and if you have the time, could you please try to leave a comment and see if it works? (especially if you have had problems leaving comments in the past) If everyone can leave comments & see comments no problem, then I’ll know it was our old theme that was causing the issues.
In case you’re wondering, there is NO moderation on comments so all comments should appear as soon as they are submitted. The only time they might be held for moderation is if you include links in your comment as the spam filter may pick that up and direct it to me first.
Thank you all again for your help! 
I hope we can clear everything up soon. (And what do you think of this new theme?) ~ Hsin-Yi
* Oops! A lot of people are confused about the blank space at the top under the black bar (with vertical lines) - sorry, it IS meant to be blank at the moment and the arrows doing nothing because I have not activated the Featured Posts function. It’s supposed to rotate select posts through with little images. But I thought I’d better not add any more fancy stuff unless basic things like Comments are working! So don’t worry if you see nothing there. I do wish there was some way to fix the black bar, though – at the moment, it is not thick enough to cover all our pages and so you can barely see the bottom row!
******
Do you get ear yuckies?
I get lots of them in one ear – always my right ear – I don’t know why! Ever since I was little, my humans noticed that I sometimes hold my right ear funny…
See how I'm holding my right ear out in a funny way?
…and they also noticed that I always get lots of ugly, gloopy brown ear yuckies in that ear. If Hsin-Yi doesn’t clean them out for me, my right ear starts getting all smelly and red & itchy and I keep shaking and shaking my head. But my left ear is always clean and pale pink and totally fine!
Anyway, so this means Hsin-Yi has to clean my ear yuckies out for me regularly. She usually does this after my bath – which I get every 2 weeks (or sometimes every week if I roll in something stinky! 
). When I was a pup, Hsin-Yi found a great ear cleaning liquid which could be squirted into my ear and then she would rub and rub my ears from the outside – and all the ear yuckies would dissolve and come running out and she could wipe them up with a tissue.
But then the company that made that ear cleaner stopped making them! 
So Hsin-Yi tried to use baby wipes to clean my ears instead…but it wasn’t so good ‘coz she couldn’t reach inside very well and lots of ear yuckies were able to hide deep in my ear…
Then one day – after we moved to Brisbane – Hsin-Yi saw a great thing in the pet store!
It’s got a lovely smell too. It is not like my old ear cleaner – it doesn’t make my ear yuckies dissolve – but it is a lovely soft oil which picks up the ear yuckies very well and feels very nice in my ear.
It is still hard to reach the ear yuckies that are hiding deep in my ears so Hsin-Yi has started using cotton buds dipped into this new oil which she then gently wipes around inside my ears.
But she says that I have to stay very still when she is doing this because otherwise the cotton bud might poke me and hurt my ears! 
So I am very good and I lie very still…Hsin-Yi has been training me to lie still for things like nail clipping ever since I was a ‘tiny’ pup. She says it is one of the most important things that puppies must be socialised to and learn: to accept being touched everywhere and to lie still when told, especially if they’re going to grow up to be big, powerful doggies. Because otherwise, we’ll be so strong that it will be impossible for our humans to hold us when they need to do things for us (and we get very stressy) - and then it means we have to go to the vet or special groomer every time…
Whereas if our humans just take the time to socialise us properly to these things when we’re little and teach us to lie still (and give us lots of cookies for being good!), then we don’t think it’s any big deal.
"Ooh...that tickles!"
"Did you get them all?"
"The other side too? But that's my left ear - it's always clean!"
"Humph! I'm telling you there's nothing there!"
Afterwards, Hsin-Yi flips my ears inside out – she says it’s good to “air them” – ‘coz doggies like me with ‘hanging-down-ears’ get warm, damp air trapped inside them and that makes ear yuckies grow more. So Hsin-Yi always tries to flip my ears open whenever she can…
.
(She says it airs my brain too…Really! How rude! 
As if my brain needs airing!)
HUMPH!
******
PS. Some of you have been asking what Hsin-Yi’s wonderful new camera machine is and what settings she uses to take my recent photos… It is a Canon 7D digital SLR with an 18 – 135mm lens. It is an amazing camera machine although it is about the size of a typewriter so not very easy to carry around! 
Hsin-Yi actually still doesn’t really understand things like ‘aperture’ & ‘f-values’ and ‘shutter speeds’ very well so she usually just puts it on “CA” which stands for “Creative Automatic” – it’s the only mode on this camera machine which allows you to put the flash OFF – ‘coz most of the pictures look nicer taken without flash. And the camera machine sets all the other values for Hsin-Yi and she also leaves it on “Automatic Focus”.
When she wants to take pictures of me running and jumping and stuff, she puts the drive into “Continuous Shooting” – which can then take millions of pictures each second (well, OK, not millions but a LOT!) – and so it never misses a shot!
Oh – and to get those nice portrait shots of me with the blurry background, Hsin-Yi found that she has to stand back more and zoom in – that makes the background go all blurry.
Hsin-Yi says she hopes that’s helpful but sorry she couldn’t give more technical details ‘coz she doesn’t actually know that much about “proper” photography!
Canon 7D! Holy crap, the Missus got a Canon 400D (that’s quite an old camera) and she’s going to pester Dad to get her another one but I don’t think she’s going to be lucky this time.
You are looking gorgeous as always!
Love,
Homer
Honey,
You are such a good pup to let your momma clean out your ears. I hate it when my momma tries but I know it has to be done.
Trooper
i never had trouble before…but it looks like your theme isn’t working well. the art work and CSS are all messed up. but i guess your’e working on it?
ps. please do a post about training to stay still. i need that. really! or at least point me to it!
Hi Honey and Hsin-Yi,
Thank you for visiting our blog and giving us your email. We will send you an invite as soon as we go private.
Sorry you are having probs with comments, we hope this gets through ok.
We shall definitely still be visiting you, we are very happy you want to continue along with us. Once we get the blog sorted we shall be able to keep up so much better with our friends.
(We just got back today from a few days away so this is just a real quick reply, we shall visit soon for a proper catch up on here)
Darwin’s ears used to always flip back like that naturally when she was smaller. She looked like a mouse!
When you first switched over I wasn’t able to see comments, and if I left one I couldn’t see it, though the blog post would say there were so many comments. It’s been working fine lately though.
hope you get it all figured out! this new theme is okay… I did like the clouds too!
Hi Honey and Hsin-Yi
We never had trouble leaving comments, but then we didn’t really check to see if they were there…anyway on the new background….the top portion, under the banner is out of whack….we have reloaded the page a couple of times and it does not load properly-it is the area under the tabs. I’m not sure what should be there, but it is just vertical lines.
You are so good lying still while having your ears cleaned, Honey! I like my ears cleaned too! When it’s over, I run around like crazy!
That is some camera machine. The pictures are great! My ears do the inside/out thingy too! Isn’t it a funny look?
Drools and licks,
Minnie and Mack
Hi Honey,
How do you manage to behave when your ears are cleaned?! You’re such a good girl!
You got a cool flashy box. Piappies mom would love on of those. You got her at continuous shooting. She always misses our shining moments and we don’t get to do a repeat most of the time.
Love,
Piappies Fudgie, Princess, Frappie, Mocha, Sugar, Wai-Pai & Wai-Max
Helen used to have a cocker spaniel, so had the same problem with ear cleaning -- yucky!!! Honey is such a good girl for cleaning hers it seems, well done! We are envious of your fancy new camera too!!
Woohoo you’ve fixed it Hsin Yi! I can see the comments perfectly down the bottom of the post on my normal home lappy (can also see them on the big computer screen) I like the new theme, looks great. Poor honey, how embarrassing having photos of her ears all fipped over, its like a girl with her skirt blown up and her knickers showing!! hehe.
Poor Honey Ears!
Hugz&Khysses,
Khyra
We don’t see the blog loading fully at the top. We see some arrows for clicking but they don’t work and we don’t know what they are supposed to be showing. Also when we click on the number that shows the number of comments, it doesn’t bring us to the comments section. In order to get to the comments, we had to click on Read full article. Not a problem for us, but not sure that is what you are wanting it to do.
We did notice today that we were having trouble with The Thundering Herd spot too, our comments were not showing up there.
We don’t have problems with our ears, probably because they are always upright and not flopped over. Once in a while Thunder has an ear problem, but not very often.
That ear solution sounds like it would be very soothing for Honey.
Great camera, but many more dollars than the Momster can think about spending. We love the auto features you described.
Woos ~ Phantom, Thunder, and Ciara
I have floppy ears so my mommy has to clean my ears frequently to prevent infection too.
I am always a good boy when mommy says “clean the ears!”
Photography is one of mommy’s hobbies too. she said it is very additive and costs a lot of “money paper” because you just want to keep buying new gadgets and hope they will make your photos better.
We are glad that Hsin-Yi got a great camera so she can take lots of pictures of you to share with us.
Have fun!
wags,
Preston
I was having a different problem I would click the website it would show up for a second or two then I would get “page cannot be displayed”. I would then access the page a 2nd time and it would work just fine! Anyhoo, you two are just darling, I used to have to clean my big old Dobermans ears too.
Working beautifully now the page loads much faster and the comment saves really quick too!
Honey, you are better about ear doctoring that we are. Of course, we lick each other’s ears and that helps [not, says mama]. Jed is always flipping Abby’s ears over when they play. Love the way you hooked Hsin-Yi’s pants with your toenail to make a nice, continuous pillow for your head while she worked.
Hsin-Yi, thanks so much for the info about the camera. Mama really wants one, although she’s very technologically inept and probably couldn’t use it to its fullest.
We can load everything from your site, click on the tabs on top and get to the appropriate location, etc. We can see and leave comments at the bottom of each post. We miss the header with Honey’s pictures and the revolving pictures of Lemon on the side, but first things first.
Jed & Abby in Merryland [USA]
We were having some kind of problem like what Cheryl experienced and we have always thought it was our computer as our human is a computer dummy.
We are with Wild Dingo on training to stay still. We got our humans all worked up whenever they tried to trim our nails and to pluck the hair out of our earholes. Now they need to send us to the groomers for those things.
They have tried giving us lots of treats whenever we are on the grooming table but we are too fast at the treats and they are gone before they are even done with our ears and nails!
This seemed to load much quicker. I didn’t realize I should’ve seen comments from others with the old theme, I never did see them. Even when I submitted my own comment, it never showed up either.
One of my dad’s beagle’s gets a lot of ear infections. My dad is forever cleaning out the dog’s ear.
I have one ear that always gets more ear yuckies too! I always thought that was weird…but at least I’m not the only one! And we’ve never had any problems with your web page or leaving comments, but good luck figuring it out!
Lucy & Lauriel
Drake has one ear that flips back on occasion. Our human pretends he’s being cheeky when she sees it…
Hi Honey,
That organic cleanser looks like it would smell nice -- does it do a good job? I don’t think I could stay still for cotton buds like you do
The last Golden Retreiver who lived here used to have waxy ears that smelt like a brewery, so his ears were cleaned reqularly with probably the same cleaner you used to use for Honey before they stopped selling it in Auckland about five years ago. They then found another good squirty one for him.
So far my ears have been fine (only one slightly pink ear in four years), but every few months mum squirts that cleaner into my ears and massages them and wipes them so I get used to the process, smell and squishy noises deep inside in my ears just in case I ever actually need it.
Woofs,
Riley
No problem with leaving comments -- Mom’s just been lazy!
We don’t really have too many ear icky problems, but we have to get our ear hairs trimmed regularly (I thought that was just an old man problem, but what do I know?!?). As for bloggie problems, Mom is trying to find a new layout, and she’s too lazy, um, “otherwise occupied” to do anything clever… We are most impressed with your lying still skills -- we still get a little fidgety when Mom is brushing our teeth. However, she can stick her fingers down our throats to remove anything that shouldn’t be there, so that’s something, right?
*kissey face*
-Fiona and Abby the Hippobottomus
PeeEss: I’ve got voting up for my new name tag, so please stop by and vote -- thanks!
I did not have problem posting a comment the last time and I hope this one goes well too!
I used to have yucky ears too… not funny, right?
Take care
Kisses and hugs
Lorenza
haha. really amazing pictures! love the turned-out ears! sapphire also have the same deal- more gunk in the right ear. funny eh?
Well, thank you very much Honey -- not!
Now my mum’s got me walking around with my ears flipped back to air them! Sheech!!
Hi Honey, ha thats me to a T, Mum uses epi otic to clean out our ears and then if they are really bad she has some medicine from the vet. Yeah cos we have those drop ears and probably cos we sleep under the covers so we get well toasty and the bacterias probably love it. And yeah we get to walk around the house with flip ups too -- we thought it was just us -- glad we have company in our wierdness. And Mum says to say Yay, now she can see comments again.
I get ear yuckies too and it is no fun. PeeWee just finished having them. I don’t like having my ears washed, but I am a very good boy and stand still when momma gets the washy stuff out. Not like idiot PeeWee. She has to grab him and go into the washy room. Once he realizes the jig is up, he simmers down.
I know what you mean about starting this stuff on young pups, but you know, momma has been trying to brush the Pea since he was a baby and he still goes all wiggly cracker dog and makes her use HBO words. Not me! I love a good grooming.
Slobbers,
mango
Thanks. I’ll remember that product in case we need it. (Or I’ll check back here, if, as is very likely, the name goes instantly out of my head.)
I wondered what camera you used -- those whale photos were amazing.
I get ear yuckies in one ear, too! I do not enjoy the ear cleaning very much.
My Mommeh uses her Canon DSLR in the auto mode all the time! She says it is because she has to use one hand to wrangle me and my treats and only has one hand free for the camera.
Hi Honey and Hsin-Yi,
I don’t believe I’ve ever had any problems leaving you comments.
You are just like me you lay there and let your mom do anything to you…I do the same although I don’t need my ears cleaned very often…I wonder if that’s because I have cropped ears and you have the floppy ones…the pics with you and your ears pushed back are too funny.
AARF Kasha the Dainty Great Dane
Hi Hsin-Yi!
I am a new reader, and I haven’t left a comment before. I really enjoy the blog (I love Great Danes!) and I especially love all the training videos.
Keep up the good work!
Hi Honey -- it’s been a LONG LONG time since I have been able to comment on your blog (this is Indy, chocolate lab from Baltimore MD USA) -- my human works WAY too much sometimes and forgets to comment! FINALLY I get to say hello. I love your new theme -- tell Hsin-Yi that it’s very cool. I hope you get to see my comment ok
I do get ear yuckies alot too -- us labbies get them sometimes. I actually like it when my human Diane cleans my ears -- it feels very good to me. I do try to lie still and not move -- and of course if there are TREATS involved, I will do almost anything! I wanted to thank you and Hsin-Yi for posting all your clicker training videos -- my human has watched them alot -- and now I do lots more tricks and can heel properly, all thanks to your videos! I knew I could do it -- it was training my HUMAN that was the problem -- ha ha! Now she knows how to use the clicker -- and how to be patient with me when I am learning something new. I can even do the paws on the chair trick now -- so a big THANK YOU to you for teaching us so much about using a clicker.
:):)
I hoep to stop by again soon -- a big chocolate labbie hug from me to you
xxoo -- Indy Bones
Honey,
We are so excited because we finally got to meet a great dane in person. His name was fred and he was huge! He was an outside doggie here in Texas so he did not smell very good and his manners were not very nice either. He was so sweet though and really needed some attention. I always thought you looked big compared to your mom but gosh…
Anyway keep those ears clean and keep blogging we are all here to read you!
Oh…and Bella our boxer regularly airs her ears out on her own. We call it her air conditioning. She only does it when she is hot.
Weird! I haven’t had any problems leaving comments here. Usually if I do have trouble with a blog it’s a Blogger site. Then again I use the Opera browser, so my experiences are probably not typical …
Hey honey!! you are not the only one with ear yuckies!! I dont have a whol bunch but im still a pup!1 Dont worry my mommy always puts my ears back and lets them air out too!! People laugh at me when they are like that but at least im getting all the attention right (its hard to do when you have a sissy that only weighs 3 pounds
Well I’m glad your ears are all clean again, Honey! When I was a puppy I got these things called ear mites, which were like very tiny little buggies that you can only see with a microscope, that were crawling in my ear! (My mom was very grossed out) But luckly they went away with some medicine, and now my ears only need cleaning when I go to the vet for check ups.
One of my human pups has trouble with yucky ears also. I use ear candles and they work really well. I’m not sure if they are recommended for dogs, but perhaps you could check? They are usually in health food shops and some pharmacies. The warm air goes in and softens up the goop and then sucks it out. It is painless and quite relaxing too. But dogs have different shaped ears to humans so it may not work.
Always willing to help with test comments! But it looks like things are working well.
Hi Honey,
That’s funny, i have got the same problem and also in my right ear only!! It started when I had an infection in both ears.
My human got a thingy from her pet docter called Otoclean and it works the same as the old liquid Hsin- Yi put in your ears. Maybe your pet docter has got something like that?
I think you are very brave lying still like that!! Wow, I stil don’t like it that much, but hey, Iwasn’t trained for that when I was a puppy. So I still try to be naughty when my human puts it in my ear.
Greets from Holland from Ximbo and her human Annemieke
I had problems leaving comments before, hopefully this will go through without a hitch!
I’ve also used those “keratolytic” ear cleansers with my dogs; they work great, but not all dogs enjoy the feeling of liquid inside their ears; our dalmatian used to shake her head and just end all the liquid flying out.
Elle Woods only gets yuckies in her right ear too!
I don’t clean them as often as I should but I check them often to mke sure they’re not infected. She got a pretty nasty infection a couple years ago and I always make sure they’re clean. The worst part about infected ears is how bad they STINK! I can always tell without even looking if she needs to be cleaned because that brown gunk is YUCKY!
My parents danes have always had cropped ears and have never once had an ear infection or any sort of brown gunk, which I think is a huge disadvantage of having natural ears. But I just love the look of a floppy eared dane’s sweet face.
Hi Honey, You look like you enjoy getting your ears cleaned. It looks relaxing. Hope you got some nice treats afterwards. Your camera takes great photos. We love looking at them that’s for sure. Slobbers, Bruce.
We don’t get many ear yuckies, but we don’t go outside either. Meowm is glad for this, cause she has enough troubles clipping our claws…she says she can’t imagine having to clean our ears too.
We only had trouble with your blog at Meowms work before, but they block alot of stuff there. It has always worked fine for us at home.
Awww Honey I feel for you. My mom does that with my ears too because they get gross too. I don’t like having them cleaned and I’m a bad boy but I blame mom for not working with me on them when I was young. I guess it slipped her mind. I let her air them out though. She says I look cute. You shouldn’t give her ideas about airing out my brain though . . . anyway glad your torture is over.
Jackal
Oh and I forgot to mention that it’s working perfectly for me now. I don’t have to wait for it to load or anything and my comment came through well. I like the new look too. I like simple looks.
Sorry about your ear troubles Honey. Momma is surprised because you are raw fed and thought that was one of the things that raw diets could help with. But then maybe it would be much worse if you were not a raw doggie. Momma says she is soooooo lucky to have one of the few labradogs with no ear troubles. She used to clean my ears but then stopped when she realized that my ears just seem to stay clean on their own. When she takes me to the vet they say my ears look fine and she keeps quiet when they say they can tell she cleans them. Heh heh heh… She has trouble with her own ears since she is in the water a lot and she says she has learned that if it aint broke don’t fix it and sometimes if she monkeys with her ears too much then that is when she will have more trouble. Not that your trouble is explained by that, it is just what she says about my ears… no need to go monkeying around if there are no yuckies to begin with! She learned lots about doggie ear yuckies with Mandy though. Poor girl had terrible ears and momma never could get them right before her new family adopted her. Luckily she went to a family who had lots of experience with ear yuckies before Mandy and so they got her doing better. (sadly Mandy has had a life time of them and can’t hear out of one and may need it removed eventually because of no one taking care of them for years). Anyways, you are at least lucky that Hsin Yi does a good job keeping them clean so they don’t get worse!