[AlicetheYorkie]

Originally Posted by FlDebra

I was right there when they docked two litters of my yorkies. They did the actual docking in the next room but the door was open & I wasn't more than 6 feet from them. I could have taken 2 steps & watched but preferred to stay with the litter as they took them one by one for docking. Some whimpered a little as I took them away from momma but they were no worse when they got their little tails snipped off. Not a one of them cried or continued to yip after they handed them back to me. Some made that little whiny noise that says, "where's momma?" They did root around immediately as I cuddled them to my neck, looking for something to suckle. We laughed about how they were more interested in finding momma than they were worried about losing their tails. One did look for all the world, like he was still sleeping when they handed him back to me. I can definately say he was IN NO DISTRESS WHATSOEVER! This IS what happened with mine and since it happened with two litters, I am pretty sure that is the norm for this vet.

You may well have had a different experience with the dockings you have seen. But that WAS my experience and I don't appreciate you trying to insinuate I lied! For what earthly purpose???? I get no commission on docking! Perhaps it has more to do with HOW the tails are docked? I do have a very gentle vet. He manages to give vaccines without making them yip or cry at all too! I always have ours done at 3 days and the vet tech told me that the smaller the dog, the easier the docking seems to go for them. If your vet is seeing that much pain with his dockings, maybe he needs to re-evaluate what he is doing or sharpen his scalpel or something.

Only a very closed and arrogant mind immediately denies someone's experience happened just because it is different from their own experience. BTW I never said the vet said it would be painless. I equated it to more like ear piercing. It might hurt them a bit for a few seconds, but it certainly did not appear they were in ANY pain as they handed them right back to me.

Just so you don't have to continue saying my experience did not happen, here is some medical references to show that puppies still have some cell divisions in their brains and some of the nervous threads are not fully developed a few days after birth. This contributes to how little pain they actually feel when tails are docked.
-- In 1941, Volkhov determined that animals, at this period of life, had very little feeling of pain. The conscious feeling of pain is still not very likely at that age.
--Schmidker wrote in his doctorate in 1951 about the feeling of pain in new-born puppies: "Incomplete development of the nervous system at the time of birth and the very high chronaxie value in connection with the fact that the animal is not able to react effectively to pain, gives us every reason to believe that the actual feeling of pain is very low in the new-born of this group of mammals (dogs). In other words, at this age and biological condition, it would have no absolute meaning to talk about pain".
--You therefore do not have to worry or fear that the dog will be made to suffer pain or psychological pain, if the tail has been docked or the dew claws removed, in the first few days after birth. "
Tail Docking - The Fritsch Report

woah woah woah First let me just say, I apologize if I offended you (in retrospect ,I should have chose my wording more thoughtfully), but I am not a close minded or arrogant person and I was not trying to "deny your experience" since I didn't even know you had one. I never said nor was I trying to imply that YOU lied, you never said in your original post that you were PRESENT for the tail docking of your puppies at all, you only described what your vet told you. I had NO CLUE you were there, all I meant by my comment about your vet "lieing" about the pup sleeping throught it or it not being painfull was that I know some vets (and MDs) downplay what pain is going to be like for a procedure, especially vets since 99% of the time the owner is not present and has no clue what is happening. The vets I worked for are the best in the area and the specific one I worked for where most of my experience lies is AAHA approved and is 100% UTD on the lastest medical procedures and equipment. I was by no means at all trying to call you a lier nor was I trying to come down on you for docking your pups tails or anything else negative towards you. The OP was asking for an honest opinion about whether or not to dock her pups tails and I was simply sharing my experience with her. The only reason I quoted you was because it SEEMED like your vet may have not been being 100% honest with you, but I do appoligize if I was wrong or insulted you in any way, I assure that was never my intention at all. Bottom line is, IMHO no matter how gentle the vet is, what they are doing is cutting off the tail. And like I said, NOTHING AT ALL AGAINST ANYONE WHO DOCKS TAILS - I agree with you that the puppies do forget all about it a few seconds later (as I believe I stated in my post) and you're also right that all they want to do is look for "mommy" at that point and they are fine afterwards. The fact of the matter is, it does cause pain (even though only a few seconds of it) to the dog and my experiences (many) prove that to me. I'm not saying it's cruel or tramatizing in the long run, I just personaly think it's unnessesary and it was my absolute least favorite thing to assist the veterinarian with because I felt bad for the puppies for that few seconds. The OP was having douts about doing it and the ONLY thing I was trying to do was provide her with some knowledge. Sorry again if I offended you, I wasn't trying to and I do apologize.