Hi everyone.

I'm making a dog puppet, and he's got longer ears on top of his head.

I am really wanting to make some kind of device that will allow the puppeteer to "perk" his ears.  You know, kind of like make them go from being floppy and laying down to up and alert?? 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

Two ideas come to mind. The first would be to put a dowel or something similar into the ear that has a pivot point at the base of the head. Attach a piece of line to the end that is past the pivot point inside the scull that pulled down so that it causes the dowel to rotate up.  The other idea is a variation used to articulate hands.  The simplest form of this is a series of straws that have been cut and then attached to the inside of a form that makes the finger.  You have a break where the joint is.  Thread a string through this and then when you pull on it the finger is curled. Release the string and the finger straighten out. 

I agree with Shawn, a dowel inside the ear with a string would probably be the easiest and most effective way to do this trick, especially if you carried the strings out the back of the head to be operated by your free hand.  Otherwise, my brother once made a dog puppet with big floppy ears that he operated by attaching a coat-hanger "Y" to the ears on the outside of the puppet.  The lower part of the "Y" was a handle to perk the ears as quickly and dramatically as he wanted, and when he wasn't using it it hung unobtrusively behind the puppet.