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Originally Posted by alisonJ Tail docking began hundreds of years ago when people had a very different attitude to dogs and ’animal welfare’ was unheard of. Docking is thought to have been (mostly mistakenly) used for the following reasons; to increase a dog’s speed, prevention of damage in dog fights, prevention of back injury, rabies prevention and even tax evasion!
These days, the main reasons given for keeping docking are:
To avoid tail damage
Reasons of hygiene
To maintain breed standards
To maintain breed standards? This is docking for cosmetic reasons and that is just not good enough! The Kennel Club (in the UK) changed the breed standards so that previously docked breeds could now be shown with tails, so there’s really no excuse. The pain and disadvantages associated with docking cannot be allowed just so that a dog will look a certain way. Dogs are born with tails for a reason – if they didn’t need them, evolution would have made them smaller or got rid of them altogether by now! |
Actually, you left out the none cosmetic reasons for tail docking
, Hygiene, and avoising tail damage.