[Wylie's Mom]

From Concretegurl's second link:

1. THE PROCEDURE OF TAIL-DOCKING
Tail-docking involves the amputation of most or part of a dog’s tail. The amputation is usually done when
puppies are between two and five days old, using scissors or nail-clippers or sometimes with a tight rubber band
that cuts off the blood supply to the tail. The amputation is carried out by a veterinarian, although in some
instances, docking may be done illegally by dog breeders. Neither anaesthetic nor analgesia is generally used.
Between 50 and 60 of the 200 dog breeds eligible for registration by the Kennel Club have customarily been
docked1.

The tail is an appendage that forms the hindmost part of the dog’s backbone and usually consists of between
6 and 23 mobile vertebrae, enclosed in muscle that is served by 4 to 7 paired nerves. The tail muscles (located
on the hind part of the dog’s back as well as on the tail itself) are attached to the tail vertebrae by tendons.
Docking length varies, but short-docked dogs such as Rottweilers may be left with only 1 or 2 tail vertebrae.
Tail-docking therefore involves the cutting through or crushing of skin, muscles, up to 7 pairs of nerves and
bone and cartilage connections.

2. PAIN CAUSED BY TAIL-DOCKING
Pain can be classified as either ‘acute’ pain, which does not extend beyond the healing period, or chronic or
‘pathological’ pain, which continues after the wound has apparently healed. After reviewing the scientific
literature, the Animal Welfare Veterinary Division of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
concluded in 2002 that ‘tail docking definitely causes pain in neonatal puppies’.8 Moreover, detailed studies of
the pain caused by different methods of tail-docking have been carried out on young farmed animals that are
subject to routine mutilations such as tail-docking and castration. It is reasonable to conclude that if lambs or
other young animals feel pain when tail-docked, then puppies are also likely to do so.

2.1 Comparison with pain in docked farmed animals

Lambs are tail-docked in a similar manner to puppies - by the use of a blade or a rubber ring - again without analgesia.
Numerous studies of lambs’ behaviour and physiological responses have shown that they suffer considerable pain for up
to 3-4 hours after docking, even though sheep are a species likely to avoid showing pain. A 1997 study at the Royal (Dick) Veterinary School, Edinburgh, published in the Journal of Animal Science, concluded that the tail-docking of lambs is one of the ‘unequivocal examples of animals in pain’. The lambs exhibit abnormal standing (motionless ‘statue standing’ with splayed legs), abnormal locomotor activity (restlessness, kicking, rolling, and other ‘attempts to escape’), or abnormal lying (for example, lying motionless on the side with extended legs, giving no ‘evidence of conscious awareness’)2. According to studies by New Zealand scientists at Massey University, a knife and a rubber ring produce different types of pain and hence different types of abnormal response, but it was concluded that ‘acute distress’ lasts over four hours in lambs treated
with a knife and up to 90 minutes in lambs treated with a rubber ring.

Tail-docking also causes pain in pigs. The European Commission’s Scientific Veterinary Committee has
concluded that ‘tail docking is likely to be painful when it is carried out and it has been demonstrated that in a
proportion of animals it leads to neuroma formation and hence to prolonged pain’. According to a review of the scientific evidence from Monash University, published in the Australian Veterinary Journal in 2003, ‘there are clearly reasonable grounds for arguing that surgical docking causes some amount of acute pain in [lambs, piglets and calves], as does banding, and that either method is also likely to cause pain in other physiologically similar species, such as the dog.’ An Australian survey in 1996 found that 76% of the veterinarians surveyed believed that tail-docking caused significant to severe pain in puppies, with none believing that puppies experienced no pain at all.

2.2 Puppies’ reaction to tail docking

Detailed observations of the behaviour of 50 puppies aged 3-5 days undergoing tail-docking, made by the Department of Companion Animal Medicine and Surgery, University of Queensland, appear to confirm that tail-docking causes pain. The puppies were Dobermans, Rottweilers and Bouviers, whose tails are docked very short and therefore were treated with a suture to prevent uneven healing. The report stated that:

‘All pups appeared distressed by the amputation of the tail. Relatively continuous mild
vocalizations during the preparation of the tail turned dramatically to repeated and intense
shrieking vocalizations at the moment the tail was docked. The intensity of vocalizations
decreased slightly (but was still above the intensity made during preparation of the tail) in the
period between amputation and placement of the suture (if appropriate). At the moment of
piercing the skin for suture placement, vocalizations again returned to levels comparable with the
amputation. Similar intense vocalizations were noticed when pressure was placed on the suture
material as the knot was tied. The average number of shrieks made during the amputation of the
tail was 24 (range of 5 to 33). The average number of whimpers made during the amputation of
the tail was 18 (range of 2 to 46). All pups exhibited some degree of bleeding from the stump
following docking’.

When they were returned to their box, the puppies paddled about the box or made uncoordinated limb
movements, making occasional whimpers, before they settled to sleep within about three minutes. The puppies
were separated from the bitch for the procedure, because she tended to lick the tail stump, resulting in more
vocalisation by the pup.

It is sometimes suggested that the fact that puppies fall asleep or suckle within a few minutes of tail-docking
indicates that they are not in pain. However, it could indicate the reverse. Others have pointed out that there
may be evolutionary reasons for puppies sleeping and suckling, as a way of conserving strength at a time of
injury. It is also possible that the puppies suckle to reduce the pain, as it is known that the act of suckling
stimulates the release of endogenous opioids (endorphins) that produce analgesia.4
Docking in itself is a risk; although this appears not to have been scientifically studied, there are anecdotal
accounts of puppies dying from shock or blood loss as a result of docking.

2.4 Long-term pain from tail-docking

As with many humans, dogs may live with long-term pain without it being very obvious. There is evidence that
dogs may suffer from some types of ‘pathological’ long-term pain as a result of the tissue damage caused by
docking. Pathological pain can be characterised by one or more of the following:

• Spontaneous pain (in the absence of an obvious cause);
• Flare reaction (widening of the painful area);
• Exaggerated response to a painful stimulus (hyperalgesia);
• Referred pain (pain spreads from site of injury to other tissues);
• ‘Sympathetic dystrophy’ (a pathological interaction between the sensory and the sympathetic
nervous system, that controls many of the body’s organs and glands).

In humans, amputation is often associated with long-term pain; about one fifth of amputees report attacks
from ‘phantom limb’ pain or from stump pain even two years after amputation. Pain also occurs in a small
number of people who experience limb amputation very early in life, suggesting that this may be possible in
dogs.

Dogs may suffer pain from neuromas caused by tail-docking. Severing nerves in mammalian species produces
physiological and biochemical changes, including spontaneous nerve tissue activity. One result is the formation
of neuromas, swollen bundles of regenerating nerve fibres that develop when nerves are severed. These can
persist for weeks or indefinitely, causing spontaneous nerve activity that could be perceived as pain. Dogs may
therefore have increased sensitivity or pain in their tail stumps for long after the stump has apparently healed.
Neuromas have been observed in lamb stumps when the lambs were slaughtered six months after docking4 and
have also been reported in dogs.

Anecdotal accounts strongly suggest that tail stumps can cause long-term pain. In one study three dogs with
docked tails were euthanised for perceived behavioural problems, and all of them were found to have neuromas,
even though they had been docked many years previously. It is possible that these dogs were seen as having a
bad temperament when in fact their behaviour was a subtle sign that they had chronic pain. A 2003 review of
tail docking in the Australian Veterinary Journal commented: ‘While researching this paper the authors obtained
several anecdotal accounts of docked dogs with extremely sensitive tail stumps and other odd, stumpassociated,
behaviours’.