Docking Tails (dogs- want your oppinon).

[al6517]

Monarc23 :

Glad to see you got my point to the tee, the photos you sent were exactly what i was trying to point out.

To be perfectly honest, show people, breeders, judges have really ruined allot of otherwise fine animals. this continues in all kinds of show animals.

Chicken shows, cats, horses, pigs, cows.
All we can hope to do is stay true ourselfs and the animal. it is too bad that there were not any show folks responding to this thread so we could have possibly got onto them for it, but no such luck,LOL LOL.
AL

 

[maco5]

I forgot to add in my post that I used to do mini schnauzer rescue.
Alot of the dogs that came into rescue had tails!
If a potential adopter didn't like the tail, I wouldn't adopt to them.

If the natural ears bothered them, they were turned away also.
Of course even if they adopted there was nothing they could do about it because the dogs were too old to have it done.

My point is, it shouldn't matter.
Some people are very shallow and will only have dogs with cropped ears and docked tails.

I know a breeder who thinks all mini schnauzers should have ears cropped even if they are pet quality!
I don't get it!
They look super cute with their natural ears!
Tails too!

 

[monarc23]

Quote:
Maco you make very valid points and I agree with you on pretty much all of the points! I do think that in the doberman esp that cropped ears and docked tail gives them more of a WOW factor...however if i had the desion my future dobie (i want one again lol) will be natural ears and tail.

I agree too about it being left up to the future owner. However it's challengign these days to find the majority of breeders advertising breedings that were just done instead most advertise "8 week old puppies for sale!" Which is okay but it doesnt give anyoen (even the breeders) a chance to really do things right. I always wondered why many breeders wait so long to advertise, I notice that most that do that, end up reducing the remaining puppies to drastically low prices jsut to move them out beacuse they're reaching 12 weeks old to the point that most people want younger puppies so they dockthe price to move them out which is fine but, for the breeders that's a lack of money that they could ahve had, for the puppy, it's more than likely confusion, and stress going to a home at 12 weeks old already set in some of it's ways, and probably has a hard time potty training by then if the breeder hadn't started on it already.

I plan to advertise even before I breed, get people on a no obligation waiting list, then announce when I know for sure my dams pregnant, then at 4 weeks old require deposits...however by then some potential buyers could back out but that's why I plan to advertise so early so I have a good many back up potential owners I can contact incase people in line for a pup back out. I will be selling most as strictly pets (Or hunting as well) on limited AKC registration, but I would be willing to sell FULL breeding rights to someone if they could answer some genetic questions (my male is a merle and it's a pattern that has to be educated about before it's bred to avoid problems) as well as normal breeding questions and get a few references before i'd consider it,but in which case if they are serious, I'd require a deposit at birth, and dock if they requested it...but that's about the ONLY way i'd sell full, and dock.

 

[monarc23]

Quote:
ha ha funny

I honestly never realized until reciently how drastically animals have been bred away from what they were originally bred as purebreeds for in the first place. I realized a lot of it from the BBC special that aired reciently about purebreed dogs, and it's had me looking into so many other species and I've been completley shocked. I'd rather breed cockers that honestly looked like the 1940s picture! Mine dont even look like that, however mine also look more like the "working type" than the show type so I"m at a good start atleast.

 

[brandywine]

Here's a good reason to KEEP the tail for a hunting cocker:

Short dog + heavy cover/tall grass = hard to see

+ happy, waving tail = better able to see dog

I work two small-ish English shepherds in search and rescue. In heavy cover, sometimes the only thing I can see of my dog is the fluffy white tip of her gay, waggling tail. And I can tell when she's in the scent cone by the movement -- what we call helicopter tail.

You'll likely be able to tell that your pup is birdy in the same way.

After all, English setters don't have their tails docked, and they seem to do okay in field trials ...

On the topic of dewclaws --

There are two totally different things that are both called "dewclaws," and this leads to confusion.

Every dog is born with "front dewclaws" -- a medial digit on each wrist, analogous to the human thumb. Every wild canid also has this digit. It has important functions for locomotion and also dexterity in manipulating objects. High-speed photography demonstrates that this digit comes into play on sharp turns at speed.

Show-dog breeders in some breeds and some field dog breeders remove this front dewk, the former to "give the leg a cleaner look" and the latter because "it could get caught." One reason is reprehensible, the other misinformed.

I've been a SAR handler for 17 years, both wilderness and disaster, and never seen a front dewclaw injury. I've seen doozies on every other digit, ripped tongues, shredded pads, chest-wall penetration, a skewered carpal pad, ears both natural and cropped shredded up, eyes and eyelids damaged, ripped flews, bloody noses, broken teeth. I'm sure a dewclaw could get ripped, too, and does on occasion -- but we don't remove the other toes, or sand off the dog's nose, or extract the eyeballs, because they "could get injured."

I've got one dog whose front dewks were removed by her breeder. It's a mild handicap, like a person missing his little toes on each foot. I see how frustrated she gets when she's trying to groom her own face, too, or hold a bone in her front paws.

Now, rear dewclaws are a different matter. This is a recessive mutation that comes up in a minority of dogs. It is non-adaptive in a pet, maladaptive in a working or hunting dog. No wild canid species has a fifth digit on the hind leg. It's like polydactyl cats -- a freak of nature.

These extra nonfunctional toes should be removed when the pup is <3 days old. Many of them ARE floppy and loose, and tend to shred. The low-set ones tend to catch in carpet. They bleed like someone stuck a pig. I've seen this in mixed-breed pet dogs -- other than a few purebred Beauceron, which are required by the show standard to have double rear dewclaws, I've never seen a SAR dog with rear dewks left on, so no real opportunity to observe them fail in the field.

If a grown dog still has his rear dewks, the decision of whether to remove them is dependent on the dog's activity, whether he's having some other surgery or procedure that will necessitate anesthesia anyway, and the structure of the extra toe. A pet dog with a strongly-attached rear dewk and no scheduled surgery, I'd leave it be. A working dog with a floppy low-set claw and an upcoming spay -- off it comes.

I'm pretty straightforward. Tails, ears, front dewclaws -- Nature Intended. I leave them alone. Rear dewks -- mutation that does not persist in wild populations of canids. I remove them from pups who are born with them. Our breed registry even tracks which pups have them at birth, not as stigma, but out of genetic curiosity.

 

[Akane]

The breeder I got my akita from stopped listing her puppies early because she got a lot of fake calls and emails. People trying to make off with puppies for free, bad money orders or checks, and other nasty or weird things. Now she only lists them at 4weeks old or later if they aren't already taken by people who she has talked to in person. I actually got my akita at 4 months because both people who had contacted her about the puppy turned out to not be legit and the family had grown too attached to her to see her possibly go to a bad home. So one day as I was sitting in her office she dumps this huge akita puppy in my lap and says it's mine.

They get to see their puppy every week now.

Personally I don't think the animal should be altered unless there is a risk to it while doing it's job. I understand the hunters here removing dewclaws on retrievers and dogs that can get them caught while out in the field and similar situations. I don't consider it appropriate to put an animal through any pain or needless stress just for appearances.

 

[ninjapoodles]

Since docking is now illegal in Europe, and docked dogs, even from other countries, can no longer be shown there, I think we'll see a marked decrease in docking showdogs very soon in this country. We already have so many imported, undocked poodles being shown in the U.S. that it's becoming more and more common, and therefore accepted visually. It's nothing but what people are used to seeing, and all about what constitutes, in peoples' minds, a "balanced outline". It's totally fashion over function, but when you have people buying puppies expressly to show, you feel obligated to give them the best chance at being competitive as possible, and no one wants to show up with the entry that's "different."

We have docked our own puppies' tails, and it is kind of a non-event, compared to what you expect going in (although our breed requires far from an extreme dock). We don't cut, there's no blood, no stitches, and no expressions of pain from the pups. Removing the dewclaws seems much more stressful, though the way we do it, it is also a bloodless procedure, but the pups do cry for a couple of seconds. We do it at 3 days. As a matter of fact, I can't do dewclaws. I get light-headed, and my husband has to do it.

I would not mind at all leaving tails intact, and we're actually considering it for our next litter. Two things make it easier to do that--one is that poodle tails have been getting longer and longer over the years in the show ring, and the other is that our breed does a lot of importing and exporting of show dogs, so judges are getting more used to seeing outlines with intact tails.

I would LOVE to not remove dewclaws, but every dog I've had with intact dewclaws has had problems with them getting torn. I don't know how different it is from breed to breed, but with the dogs I've had, the dewclaws seem to barely be attached, and prone to ripping easily.

In short, in my experience, the dewclaw removal is the more invasive procedure, but I'll still be glad when tail-docking is phased out. I don't feel like it's cruel, done correctly, but I do feel like it's silly and cosmetic and unnecessary. But we do show, and showing is, in many ways, silly and cosmetic.

This is Delta, who was whelped way back in 1999, and you can see how long tails were even then...so it's not such a big leap now to simply leaving the whole thing. If she had a pom on the end of that tail instead of being totally shaved down, it would look even longer.

 

[monarc23]

Quote:
Brandywine thank you! that information is perfect for what I was thinking! Someone such as yourself with so much experience in such matters should know!

So thank you for taking the time to explain them!

As for freak of nature that my Koda girl is! She was adopted at 6 weeks old, so I had no prior knowledge to her funky floppy hindleg dewclaws but boy were they gross! The one was only made worse by her breaking a leg when she was younger an needing a splint, the wrap around her leg actually deformed the poor dewclaw even more and by the time the splint came off that dewclaw was sprouting ANOTHER claw! The vet ddint seem to believe me that i felt that the claw grew as part of an odd pressure/injury being put on teh dewclaw as it was folded back nastily by the splint (carless vet staff??). Either way, I still wasnt sure if it was necc. to have htem removed then she listed off the reasons i should and I agreed it was for the best so via spay she also got those nasty things whacked off.

 

[maco5]

The breeder I work for doesn't advertise because most of her pups are sold before they are born!

She only crops ears if requested, and does crop any she decides to keep for show.

The tailss are docked though no matter what.

they could show with natural ears, but the judges in the US don't seem to know how to judge them and always seem to go with the cropped dog even if the natural eared dog has better conformation!

Until AKC makes it a requirement that no docking or cropping canbe done on the show dogs breeders will continue to do it.

We also strip the coats of the schnauzers because the standard of perfection calls for a hard coat!
They aren't born with the hard coat, so we have to strip the entire coat out, and work it as it grows in until there is only hard coat remaining.
This means no undercoat!
The stripping isn't any fun for the dog, or me!
Someocats come out super easy, butothers are really thick, and it does hurt them!

Again I don't enjoy doing this, but I have to pay the bills!
There is no blood shed or I would absolutely not do it!

I feel like a hypocrite because I do the stripping, but I am against it!

But until the standard is changed (which will never happen), it will continue to be done on terriers that have to have the hard coat.

 

[ninjapoodles]

Quote:
This is some really, really sensible logic. I'm pondering our different experiences with dewclaw injuries, too, since your dogs almost certainly "work" more than mine. Mine play hard, and a few have hunted, but none have done the rough work that is SAR.

I wonder if it has to do with how low-set or high-set the front dewclaws are? Because when I read that part of your post, it occurred to me that in the dogs I've had with dewclaw issues, the dewclaws have been on the low side. (It's an easy thing to notice in poodles, since we shave the feet/ankles regularly.) I had one standard whose left front dewclaw was repeatedly torn. It would grow back, each time gnarlier and more misshapen than the last. Once healed, it didn't cause him any pain, but it would invariably get injured again.

And I HAVE seen front dewclaws "gripping" big meaty bones...they don't seem to be able to do a lot, but you can definitely see them flexing and functioning. Come to think of it, that's the only time I've seen them in use! I love everything about watching dogs work over big, meaty bones...the muscles all the way down both sides of their spines to their tails get a workout!