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Originally Posted by gemy  I also want to know what are the increased % of dogs that need surgery on tails due to injury later in life. And I fully believe that, THAT stress is HUGE and the risks of surgery on an adult dog is a whole lot more than tail docking at three days old! |
How does anyone know whether there is NO stress-related trauma from the docking process itself? These are questions that truly can not be fully answered. There will never be an absolute determination until we've progressed as a species and in the medical arts to the point of being able to delve into the mind of the terrier. That's not going to happen.
I think it's nice to want to have studies and data. From what I've noticed in this thread, every breeder here wants to see hard data. Aren't the breeders really just kicking the can down a bit in order to avoid the real question of whether docking is actually necessary? How many species have tails? How many species survive with tails intact? What makes the Yorkie more clumsy or likely to injure the tail than other dogs? What makes it more likely that the Yorkie will injure its tail as opposed to some other body part? It sticks out and up - so it can get injured. But it shouldn't be cut off merely because it exists.
From the intact Yorkies I've seen (including my own), the tail doesn't drag on the ground - it's up. Even on docked Yorkies, the tail is high on the back. It's raised when the Yorkie is excited or does it's business.
So, we should get real here. I appreciate everyone's opinion on the matter. It's easy enough to say I like docking or I don't. It's Ok to have a preference. But don't hide behind a desire for more studies before that probably will never be conducted or validated.
Vets can say anything they want about docking. All I know is that if you slice a piece of skin off an infant - he/she sometimes screams, sometimes not. If I sliced the fingertip off the vet with a scalpel, he/she'd scream too. People have suffered PTSD from less actual physical trauma.