Tail cutting and Ear Cutting

shamrockmommy

my minpin didn't have his ears done and they are very expressive.  Up, down, helicopter, rose varying with his moods, vs just up or back with cropped.  Although he had his tail docked at 2 days by his breeder.

shamrockmommy

just up or back with cropped

 ((sighs)) this topic, again, eh?

 I have a docked breed, and think when docked properly pups feel a lot less pain in that moment then they will at a year of age when they break their tail while hunting.  At that age, when the vet decides they need it "tipped" or docked, it becomes a full amputation and will hamper their balance for a long time (if not for the rest of their lives), not to mention the pain and anesthetic for the procedure.

  Most people do not think a lot of the sporting dogs are not still hunted over, especially show dogs, and I beg to differ my breed club is coming up with innovative ways to get show dogs and their owners out in the field and it is working.  Docking is not just for a look it's for function.  It's well known a good pointer can be measured in some circles by how much blood is on their sides (from wagging their tail while hunting).... most of these dogs get tipped at the very least, wouldn't it have been better just to dock back at 2-3 days old?

Australian and European Weim breeders all very much wish they were not restricted on docking, they see tons of tail injuries and problems these days, takes lots of time to heal up and is very painful.

I personally don't have a cropped breed, but I definitely think done properly it should be up to the owner.  Rather than making a ban, why not just legislate how it can be done, ie by certified Veterinarian.... I think that is bridging the gap.

 I know I read a study once in which a naturally docked tail breed was bred into one that is artificially docked to create a natural dock tail in that breed. If it's in the standard, why not do that, then breed back to the pure breed until you get something that meets standard? I want to say this was in  boxers, and they bred to corgis, but I'll have to look.

I've never had a cropped or docked dog. I probably wouldn't buy a puppy of a breed that was, or pay for it myself, but I would never turn down a rescue who was. We had an adopted doberman with a cropped tail and natural ears. Her ears were never a problem. Max had semi(starts with p and ends with rick) ears. They got gunky, gross and infected if I didn't put stuff in them weekly. Luke has floppy  hairy ears, and so far, no problems. I was treating his ears weekly anyway early on, but since lending my stuff to my mom, for Pigeon who has semi p-rick ears that get gunky, I haven't done it.

I don't know how this compares, but I know kids don't get ear tubes unless they have a problem, nor do they just rip out your appendix for no reason. 

griffinej5

I don't know how this compares, but I know kids don't get ear tubes unless they have a problem, nor do they just rip out your appendix for no reason. 

Did you perhaps mean penis ears???  Why can we use THAT word and not the other p word?

Sorry, somewhat off topic.

 I always find it interesting people mention they like the natural look of dogs when there is nothing natural about dogs to begin with.  They have been shaped by humanity for years.  There certainly isn't anything natural about floppy ears.  If you want natural than there would be no need for cropping since all breeds would have raised ears to begin with.  There are reasons why wild canines have ears that stand upward and pretty much any animal with exterior ears for that matter.

I am in support of allowing people to choose if they want their dogs cropped or docked. 

Personally I love tails on any dog, however I would shudder to see what sort of tails would initially be found in breeds that have been docked for centuries. It will take time to transition those breeds into having tails of proper carriage, thickness, and so on.  I also almost always prefer the floppy eared versions of dogs versus their cropped versions.  I think the only exception would be the Doberman.  I've always admired a nice show quality crop on a dobe.  I think it because they have a narrower head the thiner look of the cropped ear seems balanced to me.  Most of the other breeds cropped have fat muzzles and I simply don't care for how the small cropped ears looks in comparison to the rest of their face.  I also dislike the supper short crops done on a lot of the bully breeds even though that would be the most ideal formation for any dog that was going to be going into conflict with hogs, or other close fighting prey animals.  However, yet again as I mentioned I rather leave the choice up to the individual owner rather than push my preferences on anyone.

shamrockmommy

I am against ear cropping for my own dogs, my minpin didn't have his ears done and they are very expressive.  Up, down, helicopter, rose varying with his moods, vs just up or back with cropped. 

I have to ask....Have you been around many cropped dogs?  The only cropped dog who I know who can only go "up or back" is a dog who had implants placed to make the ears stand.

Cher's most expressive body part are her ears.  She moves them all over to convey how she's feeling/what kind of mood she's in.  When they are fully erect, she is alert, focused, or about to cause trouble.  When she's tired, she does "airplane ears" where they lean off to the side of her head like the wings of an airplane.  When she's being cute & sweet, they are laid back.  She has tons of "in between" positions that convey many, many different things.  She can even control them individually.  It's not just an "up or back" thing.

Bevo used to be super expressive with his ears as well.  Nowadays, I don't look to his ears to determine his mood, because looking in his eyes tells me everything that I need to know.  We know each other so well that I don't need to look at anything else to know exactly how he's feeling.

I was present for Bevo's crop.  I was, literally, in the surgery suite watching the procedure.  I held him while he woke up, & I took him home about 2 hours after the procedure.  He was given a pain relief injection post surgery & I was sent home with pain pills to use as needed.  About 2.5 hours after the procedure, he was chasing a tennis ball, & he even destroyed one of my shoes that evening.  He didn't notice that anything was different with his ears.  We never used the pain pills because the next morning he was completely back to his normal "balls to the wall" self.

Cher was cropped at 16 weeks, which is past the "normal" age of cropping for dobes.  I was not there for the surgery, because I had a work meeting that I couldn't miss.  I was there when she was taken from surgery to recovery, & I held her, too, while she was waking up.  She was up, awake, & ready to make the 2.5 hour drive home about an hour after surgery.  She did notice that her ears were propped but she was not painful & by the time we made it home, she was back to her normal, bouncy, trouble making self.  I did not give her pain pills, despite the fact that she was twice the "normal" age for cropping.

Last night, I saw an entire litter of pups (8 of them) who had just been cropped that day.  They were running around, & playing in the yard as if nothing had happened.  Maybe, all of my experiences are anomalies, & cropping is horribly painful, but I feel like I have been around enough newly cropped dogs to confidently say that cropping isn't any more painful than a spay or neuter.

IrishSetterGrl

So, it is humanity's responsibility to look after their well-being by spaying and neutering. Refusing to fix dogs would just mean a death sentence for millions more. It is not for  cosmetic or self-serving reasons. It really is in the best interest of the dogs.

I have to be the devil's advocate, here. I am not anti-speutering, but I am anti-mandatory anything. Spaying and neutering is NOT necessarily good for any one dog. It might be good for dogs as a whole, but not for the individual. There is a LOT of debate about that. Altering a pet is absolutely, positively NOT the only way to keep it from procreating. Responsible pet ownership entails a LOT more than the reproductive status of the animal. Bean was intact for 3 heat cycles, and never once was there a question of whether she was or would become pregnant. I had no intact males in the house (which makes it a thousand times easier! A Thousand!) and she spent the entire 3-4 weeks (weird cycles) on a leash. If she'd not had her cycles so close together, she might still be intact. She had all 3 cycles before her first birthday, though,  so it was in her best intrest to either use a repro specialist and straighten her out, or spay her. I chose to spay her, since she is from untested stock and I never planned to breed her.

It is a surgery, and very invasive for the little girls. There are risks, including death during the procedure. There are pros and cons, and debates about when is best. It isn't something to be taken lightly, and taken on as "the responsibility of any decent pet owner". There are plenty of great pet owners out there with intact animals. They feed good food, keep their pets contained at all times, use the vet as needed, train their dogs, etc etc. 

If you get a breed that is normally cropped and/or docked does the vet ask you at the puppy visits if you want to get it done?  Or is it something you need to bring up yourself?  I'm just wondering how it's done because of the timing that it needs to be done in. 

 Docking is done generally at 2-3 days. After that age, it's an amputation, so it wouldn't usually be discussed at a regular puppy visit. The breeder has it done, or not. Cropping is, from what I've seen, something you have to find a vet that does it. Personally, I'd get a puppy already cropped, or go with the vet that the breeder suggested. Cropping is something of an art form. Not everybody can do it right.

willowchow

If you get a breed that is normally cropped and/or docked does the vet ask you at the puppy visits if you want to get it done? 

 Jennie already mentioned that breeders have the tails done at 1-3 days old, so if you're anticipating a pup from a litter, you need to discuss your preference with the breeder ahead of time if you want an intact tail.  I wanted to add that the shelter where Gracie was born has all the newborn litters' tails docked and dew claws removed before they are adopted.  From that perspective, they feel its in the best interest of the dog's health and welfare to have both procedures done.

Ear cropping is done 8-12 weeks, generally, depending on the breed.  That is something to discuss with your vet and find good references, because as Jennie pointed out, it is an art.  It takes experience to anticipate how a dog's head size and shape will grow into adulthood to affect how the ears should be shaped at 9 weeks old.

Also, let me add Gracie to the "didn't need pain pills post-surgery".  She stayed with the vet for a day and a half after the surgery. She could have cared less about her ears - hated the elizabethan collar but no problem with the sutures and surgery site healing - it was healed up within a matter of days.

jennie_c_d

It is a surgery, and very invasive for the little girls. There are risks, including death during the procedure. There are pros and cons, and debates about when is best. It isn't something to be taken lightly, and taken on as "the responsibility of any decent pet owner". There are plenty of great pet owners out there with intact animals. They feed good food, keep their pets contained at all times, use the vet as needed, train their dogs, etc etc. 

 ITA! 

 I always find it a bit strange that cropping/docking/debarking are all considered "inhumane" but spaying/neutering, which is far more invasive and effects the dog's entire body is considered "part of responsible ownership".

 If you think spaying and neutering has only benefits, you may want to read this: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:qZsQF_Myk0cJ:www.naiaonline.org/pdfs/LongTermHealthEffectsOfSpayNeuterInDogs.pdf+spaying+neutering+research+bone+cancer&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgEw1_AoIs5a5O-5-6tkv8lgLLLl2uncsfGfYlh84pfiVxwD_HEuNjVEusLJLQXVHx885r0FMZHPO64ftyX-sPjWQkimFQDYzN3Uuq7LdjgLopiVPuIxlQDiZMkUovkeGamTlAi&sig=AHIEtbQsLY9BPL4FgnGHIIITB0mHWYmmPQ\

 This article outlines the Bobtail Boxer porject pretty well (using a Corgi to introduce the bobtail gene into Boxers) and has interesting photos of the resulting dogs: http://www.steynmere.com/ARTICLES1.html

 Tootsies dock was done at three days. Way back when, the farmers were gonna be taxed on their dogs who had tails. Hence, docking. Obviously that isn't the case now. Can you imagine a Pembroke with a tail, herding cows? That tail would probably be trampled at some point and then the dog would have a very painful amputation. In this case, the tail is for function, not fashion.

miranadobe

 The same way it compares to why we don't perform hysterectomies on young girls to prevent unwanted teen pregnancies. 

We probably should perform hysterectomies on some people.

In all seriousness though - when we got Timmy, there was some talk of our breeder not docking the litter, she was planning on showing a puppy or two in Europe.  It just so happened that his litter didn't go as planned and she used a different dog, so she ended up docking the litter.  We told her at the beginning that we didn't care either way, we would have had him with a tail with no issues.  However, I MUCH prefer the look of a Rottie with a docked tail. 

I don't believe the government should legislate such procedures.  I won't sit here and say that Timmy probably would have had many tail injuries if he wasn't docked, because quite honestly, he probably wouldn't have.  I simply prefer a docked Rottie and am happy that I have one.  I trust my breeder when she tells me it is not painful for the pups.  I have never seen it done myself.  

If docking/cropping is done by a professional and safely, I have no issue with it.