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Why is it..........?


Sabine

Are you for or against docking/cropping ?  

  1. 1. Are you for or against docking/cropping ?

    • I think it looks good, and the dog will get over his pain.
    • I think it's cruel, and dogs should be left as nature intended them to be.
    • I don't really care


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GREAT POST, TDG !! :thumbs:

My question is, WHY ON EARTH is the AKC still ENDORSING the cropping and docking of ears and tails? :evil: THEY are the ones with the "power" to influence this practise. As long as THEY promote the mutilation of dogs, and as long as judges mark uncropped/-docked dogs down, it will be done. For the sake of it, let's throw the declawing in there too. :wink:

Isn't it time, the AKC joined the millenium? :roll: Isn't it about time, breeders of such breeds get together and quit doing it ? It's in their power......... :wink:

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i wouldn't lump removing dew claws into the same category as cropping/docking.

back to the topic at hand tho - the argument that people would do it themselves or get it done "chop shop" style by a non-professional if vets weren't allowed to perform it anymore.

first of all there needs to be a market for cropped/docked dogs, and a market is always regulated by supply and demand. if as a first step parent breed clubs and the AKC simply stopped favoring and endorsing cropped/docked dogs over natural ones in the show ring, that market would shrink considerably. if it is generally accepted, there is no pressure that the dog "has" to look a certain way or be "less worthy" if it doesn't.

the general public aren't even aware of stuff like puppy mills or why it is bad to buy a dog from a pet store, you can't really expect them to be educated on the pros and cons of cropping/docking and how unnecessary it is for pet dogs. they often get their puppies handed to them "all done" and are pretty clueless that there's actually a choice between having the dog cut to breed standard or in its natural condition.

so why not start by changing the logos of breed clubs to display both cropped/docked [b]and[/b] natural dogs and simply ending the requirement that it is mandatory? are people really [b]that[/b] afraid of change?

here are some examples from europe:
[url]http://www.dobermann.de[/url]
[url]http://www.schnauzer-pinscher.ch[/url]
[url]http://www.doggen.de/index1.html[/url]

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:wink: ...........as far as tails go: I don't think there are any tails out there as vulnerable as a Dane tail. :roll: :P :-?
Why don't we humans amputate our fingers when we're little? We may cut ourselves or break them some day. Same argument. :wink: :P :)

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[quote name='DivineOblivion19'][quote name='Sabine']:wink: ...........as far as tails go: I don't think there are any tails out there as vulnerable as a Dane tail. :roll: :P :-?
Why don't we humans amputate our fingers when we're little? We may cut ourselves or break them some day. Same argument. :wink: :P :)[/quote]

[color=indigo]If I cut my dog's tail off she simply wouldn't be able to wag, her life would not change.[/color] :-?[/quote]

But she'd be able to wiggle her whole but t instead like I've seen a lot of docked dogs do. :) I think its adorable.

We, however, use our fingers MUCH more than dogs do their tails, even if it does limit their communication ability.

And yes, dogs do use their whole body to communicate, but the main things used are the head, ears, and tail. From a distance, its easier to see a dog with ears and tail raised, a possible sign of aggression. If the dogs don't have those, its harder to distinguish when a dog is being aggressive or passive.

An example I heard before. Someone had two boxers, call them A and B. Both neutered males two years of age. Dog A was cropped/docked, dog B was not. Dog B was also the more dominant one of the two. Everytime they would meet another dog, Dog A (C/D'd) would be met with suspision and often aggression, even though he was the submissive one. DOg B, who was "whole", but often aggressive, was almost never met aggressively. Of course many other things could have come into play here, however the most obvious difference was that dog A was C/D.

Another example was a labrador, a goofy, happy, submissive dog. He was 99% of the time greeted with friendly intentions. However because of an accident, his tail had to be docked. His owner reported that after the surgery, more than half of the time dogs reacted aggressivly to him, most likely because they were unable to see the position of the tail.

I do believe that docking (not cropping in this day and age, maybe) is necessary in WORKING dogs. I see no reason for it in show dogs, nor breeds that were never even cropped to begin with (like APBT's for example, from what I know they wern't cropped in the pit, why crop a dog that trots around a little ring in shows?) Like I said, I would definately support breeding working dogs with thicker, less likely to get injured, tails. Perhaps even if this could only be acheived by outcrossing.

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Guest Anonymous

[quote name='Doberfanatic'][quote name='Tammy']
Cropping bothers me. This is only because years ago when I was an ER Vet tech I saw many late night trips for owners who didn't know what to do with those racks on their heads and racks were pulled off, stiches ripped those sorts of things. I have also seen some really bad crop jobs that just make me want to vomit. A good crop job looks nice but I would PERSONALLY never do it. I dn't want to take the chances with the racks or the stiches.[/quote]

Some people use those "racks" however, if they were really smart they wouldn't. Racks are not the optimal way to tape up cropped ears. There are much safer methods involving soft foam and tape. Just FYI :)[/quote]

Thanks Dober. I have to admit it's been quite a few years since I've been around pups that have been cropped but it does explain why I saw a picture that looked like a pup had a styrofoam cup on his head (I thought they over did the tape).

Thanks!

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[quote name='cheechweech']
I don't believe in cutting off pieces of living things so that they can conform with some arbitrary standard, or so that they "look right".[/quote]

No? Do you have your ears pierced? The only difference I see between piercings and cropping is you choose to get a hole in you, and you choose for teh dog whether he gets to keep his ears or not.

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oh what a can of worms you have opened!

my personal opinion: I am against it for aesthetic reasons. Dogs should be allowed to enter the show ring and be shown for the standard which they were originally bred for. Thankfully the UK has led the way in this thinking and has banned cropping/docking. However I am for it if there is a valid medical reason. i.e. if a dog has a whip like tail that is continually bleeding from the dog whacking it against a wall, then yes I agree that the dog should have its tail shortened to prevent further injury.

I don't accept people wanting their dogs ears cropped so that their appearance is better. The same as I just don't agree with people messing with using glue on ears to tip them.

The vet where I worked at docked tails of pups that were 1-3 days old only before the law was passed, only because he would rather see the job be done neatly than a botched up back alley job. I've seen some terrible botched up dockings before...animals that have been subjected to having a rubber band placed around their tail to cut off the circulation put through a slow painful experience for weeks.

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[quote]oh what a can of worms you have opened!
[/quote]
:oops: *duck and run* :oops: I'm impressed though, how civil the discussion is going. :thumbs: Ask that question in a Dane forum, and you better pack up and leave !! :o :o They get real defensive, and when everything points toward "wrong-doing", they get real aggressive. :lol: :P

[quote]No? Do you have your ears pierced? The only difference I see between piercings and cropping is you choose to get a hole in you, and you choose for teh dog whether he gets to keep his ears or not.[/quote]

There's a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge difference between piercing and cropping. :wink:
Piercing: YOU decide you want that done, and it's YOUR choice. Plus, it's just a little, painless ouchy-kind-of-sensation, when it's being done. No anesthesia involved here. :wink:
Cropping: It's a surgical procedure, called A M P U T A T I O N , and the puppy has no choice but hope to survive the anesthesia and good aftercare. :roll: The operation is followed by months of taping, glueing and God-knows- what-else, until the finished PRODUCT reaches the desired asthetic appearance. Pretty? NO !! Mutilated? YES !!

[quote]Most BYB'ers don't crop ears. It is too expensive for them to give up their precious $$. I've never seen a cropped Doberman in a pet store, either. So irresponsibly bought puppies come with natural ears 99% of the time. It is the owners' choice. [/quote]
All the European breeders are BYB? :o I don't think so. In Germany for instance you need approval from the "Zuchtverband", before you even get to breed your dogs. In other words: If I don't want a cropped dog, I need to go to a BYB? That makes the serious breeder look not so serious anymore to me. :wink: :-? :o

I'll take THIS look of a happy pup anyday........ :)
[URL=http://imageshack.us][img]http://img486.imageshack.us/img486/5893/prettybreeze22iw.jpg[/img][/URL]

to the look, of a miserable looking little thing. :cry:
[URL=http://imageshack.us][img]http://img486.imageshack.us/img486/320/breezemr32yd.jpg[/img][/URL]

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[quote name='DivineOblivion19'] I would say that at least 95% of our ear crops come from consumers who want the ears done, not breeders. [/quote]

i'd be very interested in the reasons why people do it. there is so much stuff people do just because "it's something you do", not because any kind of conscious thought process is involved. there are weirder things people do without ever questioning the idea behind them. lol :) (like for example declawing cats, which is even crueler, but i won't even go there right now.)

and then of course there's always the pressure from breeders (i know many do tell their puppy buyers to get them cropped, or at least strongly suggest they do so) and the mandated cropping in the breed standard.

i stand by my statement, if the lobbying [b]for[/b] cropping/docking and the constant promotion of theis "artificial" look would just stop and the cropped/docked look wouldn't be constantly driven home to folks everywhere they are exposed to it, there would be far less of a demand.

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[quote name='JackieMaya']Like DF said, there are far more important animal issues that need to be dealt with.[/quote]

that's a statement i see coming up quite often in all kinds of discussions and i always wonder why people think that fighting for one cause would take resources away from other "more important" stuff.

should we stop fighting for responsible breeding of animals and better animal welfare laws just because human children are suffering for one reason or another and they are more important?

should we stop research on adverse reactions of drugs for dogs like for example rabies vaccination or heartworm preventives just because there are problems with drugs for humans as well and it's more critical to take care of that too?

i don't think resources are so limited that one issue or cause has to take the backseat over another.

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Right on, TDG ! :thumbs: There would be no need for a law against altering an animal's looks, if breeders and KC's would not endorse the cropping and docking. I blame AKC, it's judges and the breeders of these breeds. If there are no cropped/docked animals available, people will simply buy them the way nature intended them to be. Hey better yet: Why don't breeders start breeding for that look they so desire? (I'm being sarcastic..... :wink:)

I wish my dane had floppy ears....... looks much cuter than the spock-look. :D :P

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  • 2 months later...

I think there is a major difference in *who* does the cropping.

I'd venture to say that most anti-cropping people have never seen a specialist crop ears. My dogs were cropped by a vet who only does Doberman ears - she is flown all around the country to do ears for litters of show prospect puppies. Her methods are humane and precise... the end product is a clean crop, minimal pain, very fast healing time, and puppies that could care less that their ears are fixed to a styrofoam cup!

To date, I have taken care of eight puppies cropped by this particular vet/cropper. All of them have come to me just days after cropping.

They play normally, they sleep normally... in fact, their littermates and the adult dogs chew on their cups/ears... the pups rarely yelp. The puppies I've had in my home have had their cups chewed on by my two adults, and they have never cared.

Once the ears heal (the pups in my care have taken 4-9 days to heal) the ears are put into posts, and after the initial "ick this feels funny!" stage, they ignore the posts. I guess it's like women and bras... I'm guessing that all you women out there had a beastly time getting comfortable when first wearing a bra, but you quickly stopped noticing it... I bet that most women here can't feel their bra right now (if wearing one)

One good thing I see in post-cropping aftercare is this: it makes the dogs VERY tolerant to having thier head and ears examined by vets, trainers, owners, etc.

I do thing cropping should be regulated by breed clubs - i.e. you CANNOT crop without an experienced mentor present unless you have passed a rigid, difficult examination from the breed club. Croppers should have to apprentice under experienced croppers.

I would rather see a "master cropper's crop" over much else. But if I can't get that crop (and it's a very expensive, exclusive crop that takes months of pre-booking) I'll have no crop at all. No crop is betterthan a bad or mediocre crop any day.


Education is also important. Many people see puppies in posts (ears have been healed for months) and they recoil in horror, thinking that the ears had been cropped days prior.

These puppies have had perfectly healed ears for more than two months (they're chasing an adult dobe through some rivergrass):

[img]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y114/ForLeah/30May301.jpg[/img]

This puppy doesn't even notice that he's putting pressure on his ear posts...
[img]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y114/ForLeah/23May092.jpg[/img]

Even while still wearing the cup, this puppy isnt' hindered in any way:
[img]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y114/ForLeah/08May069.jpg[/img]

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  • 3 weeks later...

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