I thought I might try a more advanced rig with joints in the 'ears' while they are slightly longer, but decided it was probably more control than I need for this character but will try on the one with very long ears.

Same rig as 1st character rebuilt with similar controllers

The mesh is a lot chunkier which looks nice when bent into shapes as it looks like it has volume

The character can be deformed quite extremely with no harm done to the mesh, this will be good to animate with as I can make dynamic movements without worrying about the characters becoming out of shape or proportion (unless I want them to be)