Tail biting in pigs that's another thread I suppose. Didn't they use to remedy that with pliers on both ends,of the biter and the bitten.
Tail docking a spaniel?
- Thread starter Apthorpe
- Start date
We have a better understanding of animal welfare and behaviour these days, so it's generally dealt with now by enriching the environment in which the pigs live, thus alleviating the boredom that leads to tail biting, and removing the need for docking.
John Gryphon
Well-Known Member
Had mine chopped, don't remember it, woulda rubbed the ****ing thing off anyway with all the shagging I did lol.
I`m certainly no vet but i can advise that the above has never manifested in any of our or others pups. See bottom re Gerard The Gent
Can anyone on this thread remember getting their umbilical cord cutNo
No.
Working terriers, we always had them and it was a DIY procedure at a few days old. The little tail is a mushy unformed bit of 'nothing' then.
One of the best ever racing greyhounds in Victoria lost 8 inches of his tail in a starting box accident...It never hindered him, he was a champion for years. Gerard The Gent was his race name.
csl
Administrator
Watching a dog's joy at being able to do a day's work and gather up an entire days game without stopping to lick their tail, without getting tackled in brambles etc., sold me. They keep going no matter what, so why not make it less painful for them?
If they come up with a way of being more careful about docking a dogs tail and avoiding the 'I look hard' in front of his mates the better though.
If they come up with a way of being more careful about docking a dogs tail and avoiding the 'I look hard' in front of his mates the better though.
It did.
And it was quite open that there are a lot of unanswered questions. Including the potential that the injury may be more associated with kennels than actual work. It was a survey of vet practices, so there was a weakness that many injuries may not have been treated by the vet.
Dunwaters
Well-Known Member
Do you have a source for this study?
You wouldn’t get many docked working dogs injuring their tails to the extent that veterinary treatment would be necessary and undocked dogs tend not to be worked.
John Gryphon
Well-Known Member
Why is it that the 'normal' long tailed dogs rarely have a tail problem and yet by many accounts Spaniels do?
You can breed for anything, the difference being if you get sheep that fit that criteria but fail in others you slaughter them, what are you going to do with the puppy that you have just sold to Mrs Miggins and her family when you find it has temperament problems? They have to put up with it for the next 15 years. You are also going to restrict the gene pool dramatically as few dogs will have that trait you are breeding for, we know where that ends up for a breed.
Google docking dogs tails, It's the 1st one that comes up on Google on my page from the BVA, It also mentions the 500 number that Buchan also refers too so not sure if the info came from this.
I used to breed working terriers and docked all my own pups, Yes they used to give a little whimper initially but once they were back with their mam they seemed fine and grew into nice healthy dogs, We only ever passed them onto friends and friends of friends so we kept in regular contact and I can't say I ever seen any health problems in them or had reports back about health problems.
Dunwaters
Well-Known Member
Generally because they don’t work cover in the same way that some gundogs do.
Have you whelped bitches then? They have a lot of pain, are at risk of many conditions including death through the very act. There are enough issues with vaccines too yet very few in the UK advocate titre testing. To my mind the answer isn't black and white there are many shades of grey. Does a pet need to be docked? I think most would agree that they don't so don't dock them; but if the litter is from working lines and a number are likely to be worked then dock them; but now there is too much indoctrination. I remember having a chat with Steve Dean when my wife was working with him at Crufts. At the time he was the head of the Council of Docked Breeds; he got loads of grief from vets telling him he was wrong and he only did it because he owned a docked breed. He bred Border Terriers, which obviously aren't a docked breed, yet the holier than thou crowd didn't have the basic knowledge to realise and I don't think enough have a knowledge of the jobs different breeds do and what it entails.
Risk factors for tail injuries in dogs in Great Britain - PubMed
The aim of the current study was to quantify the risk of tail injury, to evaluate the extent to which tail docking reduces this risk, and to identify other major risk factors for tail injury in dogs in Great Britain. A nested case-control study was conducted during 2008 and 2009. Data were...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Sighthound tail injuries are an absolute nightmare - almost no spare skin and a very wide range of movement.
We do. Which is why very few vets will dock tails.
John Gryphon
Well-Known Member
Good old Aussie pig dogs working lignum and blackberry thickets even that horrible African Box Thorn. Think again as that is where the pigs lay up and other horrible stuff according to which state. We collectively never had tail injuries with any of our pack/s
I didn't specifically mention 'sighthounds' but the 'normal' long tailed dogs
See above.
I don't wish to reconsider. The fact that a very small percentage of people living under their rule in the Middle Ages were very learned, doesn't extend to the present, where rather more of them have pre-medieval values and beliefs - the desirability of slavery, public executions, torture, mutilations etc, rampant racism and the extension of the death penalty to anybody whose opinions you dislike.
It has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity.
This is a digression and I won't be making any further comment on it.
Risk factors for tail injuries in dogs in Great Britain - PubMed
The aim of the current study was to quantify the risk of tail injury, to evaluate the extent to which tail docking reduces this risk, and to identify other major risk factors for tail injury in dogs in Great Britain. A nested case-control study was conducted during 2008 and 2009. Data were...
Statistics - got to love them
So many more working dogs live in kennels for a kick off
In my world there are not many "normal" dogs (apart from labradors) as they are all deformed in some way be it unable to breathe, unable to walk, excessively long or short noses, bendy legs, crap skin and so on!
Yes, this was one point that was made in the analysis, that it could be the kennels casing the problems
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