Another tail docking survey in Scotland

[timbrayford]

Speaking from firsthand experience of having bred undocked springer spaniels over the last 30 odd years, and worked them on the beating line , on rough & driven shoots.

The most serious injuries sustained have mostly been to tongues, ears and legs, usually caused by barbed wire. The cuts sustained to tails have without exception been so minor as to not require veterinary attention.

atb Tim

 

[Lakies]

From what I have read, Apache is FOR tail docking but said the facts in a particular piece of research weren't clear cut.

How did that go from there to the hatred for him making a living? Of course he wants money for treating dogs, like I want money for teaching kids and others want money for taking people stalking. It's wicked, but the way of the world. We need to make money.

Nothings is wrong with people making a living, vets rip people off its a fact, some do some don't, I've went through a few vets before I've found a good 1. There's no "hatred" as you put it towards his proffesion if you look back it was apache who brought up all the " legal obligation" talk.

No one is saying he is against tail docking he has told us he isn't but he keeps going back to this study that involved undocked non working spaniels tell me what use that is? Its like saying aye this fire extinguisher is brilliant doesn't need any changes...have you put a fire out with it? No but the paper says its brilliant. It will also show nowhere near the real problem because 1 people go to other countries for their spaniels and 2 not everyone will go to the vet Everytime a spaniel bursts its tail.

 

[Dougster]

Nothings is wrong with people making a living, vets rip people off its a fact, some do some don't, I've went through a few vets before I've found a good 1. There's no "hatred" as you put it towards his proffesion if you look back it was apache who brought up all the " legal obligation" talk.

No one is saying he is against tail docking he has told us he isn't but he keeps going back to this study that involved undocked non working spaniels tell me what use that is? Its like saying aye this fire extinguisher is brilliant doesn't need any changes...have you put a fire out with it? No but the paper says its brilliant. It will also show nowhere near the real problem because 1 people go to other countries for their spaniels and 2 not everyone will go to the vet Everytime a spaniel bursts its tail.

And this justifies the vitriol and rudeness? The OP asked if we needed another study after the findings of one at Edinburgh, Apache said that he didn't think it was adequate. Show me the evidence for your fact, or even a vet in a Porsche and I'll believe you.

 

[Lakies]

And this justifies the vitriol and rudeness? The OP asked if we needed another study after the findings of one at Edinburgh, Apache said that he didn't think it was adequate. Show me the evidence for your fact, or even a vet in a Porsche and I'll believe you.

What rudeness? You mean a discussion? Have I called him any names? Or spoke about him personally? No only his profession we did have a snarky remark at each other but if you check back I wasn't the one to throw the first sarky remark. I don't need you to believe me, quite frankly mate I couldn't give a ..... if you believe me I'm telling you I know for a fact, that some vets are total rip off merchants, I know this because since I've moved to where I live now I've been through 4 vets and the one I'm with now charges nowhere near my previous vets and he won't spin you a load of lies either just tells you straight what's what and how it is what can be done and what's a waste of time.

so to make it plain to you and the OPs question I think it would benefit from another study do you dougster think that a study carried out with non working dogs is of any use on a study of wether or not working dogs should be docked? Its totally pointless, as ive said not every injury is recorded, not every dog that needs an amputated tail is done and not every vet in Scotland would do it anyway infact most won't. So how can this study even be of any use? Instead of all the fancy carry on why not just get in contact with the owners of 500 undocked spaniels and 500 docked spaniels I could supply a report to them for 1 of each throughout this season, pictures of injuries, how many days they are out how long recovery time was for each injury etc and at the end of January they would be able to work out a comparison and percentage of each, this would to me give a good conclusion to this problem and you don't need half the alphabet after your name to do it. It would be a report from the frontline basically, doesn't matter if you done it with 500 dogs or 50,000 a percentage should roughly be the same then we can see what's what.

 

[Jimbo 30 06]

Speaking from firsthand experience of having bred undocked springer spaniels over the last 30 odd years, and worked them on the beating line , on rough & driven shoots.

The most serious injuries sustained have mostly been to tongues, ears and legs, usually caused by barbed wire. The cuts sustained to tails have without exception been so minor as to not require veterinary attention.

atb Tim

30 years ago 1984 you NEVER saw an undocked Springer on a shoot. As I said in previous post the few undocked Springers I have seen on shoots all ended up with injured tails and looked like they had been sprayed red none were seen out again on the shoot. As yours only got minor injuries to their tails one can only assume that Tesco's car park was part of the drive.

Jimbo

 

[timbrayford]

30 years ago 1984 you NEVER saw an undocked Springer on a shoot. As I said in previous post the few undocked Springers I have seen on shoots all ended up with injured tails and looked like they had been sprayed red none were seen out again on the shoot. As yours only got minor injuries to their tails one can only assume that Tesco's car park was part of the drive.

Jimbo

No, 3 gates wood on the Isle of Wight, it is full of fallen Blackthorn and Bramble. Obviously you are not familiar with it, nor have you any experience of working your own undocked Springers

atb Tim

 

[Hoolit]

I have always docked my own pups in the past and can no longer do so by law , my first undocked cocker had to have a third of her tail removed after her first working season and my first undocked springer had to be rehomed as a pet due to terrible tail damage that I felt was cruel to allow to go on. Why must wee go on allowing our working dogs to suffer in this way and suffer they most defenettly do ,only because they have the unfortunate bad luck to be born in Scotland. PS why are still allowed to remove dew claws on these very dogs wee cant tail dock.

+1 Hoolit like you I docked my own until the early 1990's when it became illegal and had to be done by a vet. In 1992 the RCVS decided that tail docking should not be carried out and tried to dicipline a vet that had carried out tail docking procedure the diciplinary fell apart due to lack of evidence. The vet docked the tails exactly the same way as me (won't go into specific details) but to me my procedure was more hygenic. So you see the RCVS are as much to blame as the anti's in there approach to tail docking and now that it has been highlighted that we can still remove dewclaws it won't be long before it's vets only that can do dewclaw removal.

Jimbo

It will come about fairly soon that only vets can do dew claws ,anal glands and any other procedures that dog men /women have done for years .
Hollit

Every dog deserves a well trained owner.

 

[Buchan]

Just to add in to this (partly because I feel Apache is under siege a little!!!)

Re lamb tail docking - the reasons for (breech soiling etc) are probably due to another underlying cause - such as worms. There is a general recommendation that it is not carried out unless unavoidable. There is excellent evidence that the pain of the rubber ring is enough to prevent the lamb suckling which can be a real problem. In Scandinavia they have to use pain relief.

The most recent survey has provided some evidence that docking will reduce tail injury in spaniel and HPR breeds, leading to the suggestion that legislation be changed to be breed related. However, it also, as Apache has pointed out, suggested that a potentially high number of pups that need to be docked in order to prevent tail injury. On the basis of this work, if docking is to be permitted, it will be working dogs likely to sustain injury only. Terriers therefore will probably not be included. Out of interest the survey was amongst the shooting organisations, therefore is likely to be biased in favour of reporting the injuries. It had surprisingly few replies given the sizes of the organisations surveyed.

A question though. If there were no docking when the spaniel was emerging as a breed I'd wonder if two possibilities emerge. One that the owners ensure that they only breed from dogs that don't get injured and two, that the dogs themselves learn not to wag their tail so spectacularly in dense cover!!