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Originally Posted by gemy  I am going to say again, if you want and feel strongly about certain parts of a standard then join your local/regional breed club, and be part of making a difference into the standard.
All active members get to vote on standard changes!
For me, like any other caring person, do truly want to know if this is a painfull procedure. My experience says not. I also want to know if there is a long term debilitating effect. And there is one article on here, that says it is not, nor is there a long term effect!
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!
Tail docking IMHO pales in comparison to those breeders whether they be commercial (which is about all commercial breeders), who do not test for many health conditions before breeding!
That is a huge travesty, and you like I, see it every day on the board. How many posts do we have here on Sick and Emergency or Yorkie Health, that says my dog's tail was docked and he/she is experiencing partial paralysis, or some such problem?
Compare this to how many posts we have about truly life debilitating conditions such as Liver Shunt, and Luxating Patella?
I think that as a dog fancier that is passionate about the breed you love, that one should be supporting those breeders who test for these things, and supporting research to identfiy the genetic markers for these conditions in the Yorkshire Terrier Breed.
Anne talking "about" it doesn't make it harder for breeders to breed, but a standard change is a serious business, and one that once changed will require all breeders who respect the standard to breed to that standard. And yes that does make a big difference! It might not be important to you as a non-breeder, but it is important to me as one!
The Standard, a good standard is a blueprint, the goal set in writing of what any breed should be. It is the goal that all good breeders strive towards.
So there is in my mind a whole lot more serious issues with the YT that I would like to see addressed in the Standard, that has nothing to do with the length of the tail. These issues are of known hereditary origin, and DO over the life of the dog effect in a very painful way their life, not to mention the cost the extreme emotional cost to the owner of a sick dog, and of course the financial burden!
Until and unto such time, there is clear and unequivocal evidence that tail docking is injurious to the long term health of my dogs, I will continue to support breeders choice in docking or not! |
Great insight, thanks for posting all of this. And I do agree, changing the standard is a huge undertaking and huge decision -- and it *is* important to me; if it wasn't, I wouldn't be posting on it. And, breeders' opinions are definitely important to me - as long as they're willing to discuss, and not close down the discussion (which you don't do
). I always appreciate the fact that you're a breeder who is willing to discuss the sensitive stuff...even if/when you may disagree; you never come down on people for wanting to know more or wanting to challenge the status quo.
I get that most breeders might say "but there are so many other things to focus on like LP" - I get it...I think we all do/would. But the reason tail docking is high on the food chain for me is bc of the nature of the intervention, and the fact that it may not even be necessary. I don't want any body-altering intervention performed on any creature unless it truly is absolutely necessary. I'm still not seeing that amputating a tail is THAT necessary to the well being of a dog. Especially as compared to the nature of the "prevention" procedure. And that's where a lot of views digress, I know.
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Originally Posted by Nancy1999 In science, there’s something called the status quo bias, in other words, it’s better to keep things as they are then change something is until we are sure it’s superior. Most scientific testing is based upon this, and I fully support it. I do agree though, we should never support anything blindly, but before we make decisions we should understand both sides of the argument. I think we forget that there is nothing “natural” about dog breeds, the Yorkie would never developed in the “real world”. Breeders have picked and chosen which traits should be in the Yorkshire terrier and eliminated other traits, they’ve never had to think much about breeding for tail, except “where” it sat, they didn’t have to take thickness or length into consideration. If we outlaw docking, breeders would start breeding for a thicker tail, but even that simple suggestion would have repercussions, we would be limiting the gene pool again, and this could disastrous have effects. I totally agree with you, breed clubs should be heading this effort, not pet owners, but only because breeders understand the full extent of the problem. Some commercial breeders are interested in banning docking but it’s probably because it will save them money, I doubt if they care about the best interests of the dog. As I said before, I really don’t know the answer to this question, I think it’s much more complicated than some seem to think.
Regarding the skinny tip I think you're right, some do take much more than that. Ann, I hope you know I appreciate your opinion too. If I made the rules, they would just dock the skinny tip! |
Yup yup - breeders should be heading it, that would be so ideal
! And perhaps they are truly looking into it; but if they are - they're not sharing enough w/ us. And if they are, they need to be willing to discuss our concerns without getting defensive; bc as soon as they get defensive about it...it breeds ('scuse the pun
) mistrust imo. As if they're trying to hide something from us, the owners. And they're probably not trying to hide anything, but it can def come off that way. I'm sure a lot of it is that they are looking at what they view as higher priority items, and I understand that...I hope they truly keep this on their radar though.
You're right - we should always support getting both sides of the story, it's always important. I think that's what's nice about this forum, is we seem to always have so many sides to an issue. And I do empathize with how complicated the issue is in its application and ramifications, but I do think it's so important to discuss things that might be worth looking at in a more serious way.