 from a breeder's perspective
I'm a breeder and exhibitor strongly in favor of banning tail docking here, in the US, which seems to be lagging behind most of the civilized world in this practice. After spending some time in the UK last year, and seeing Yorkies everywhere with their beautiful little tails, I resolved to discontinue tail docking in my own kennel. Under pressure from my mentor, who is still stubbornly clingling to the idea that docking is necessary for the show ring, I recently caved in and took some three day old show hopefuls for docking and regretted it with all my heart as they bled and cried all the way home. People coming to see my puppies have been overwhelmingly in favor of not docking. Breeding Yorkies is overall so expensive that the cost savings from not docking are not enough to consider when pricing a puppy. |