Tail docking a spaniel?

[Bo Diddley]

That's been done too.
You can buy them from any gardening catalogue that sells fruit bushes etc.

I need to get out more. Thanks for the education

 

[Hambone]

I need to win the lottery and plant out where I go.

 

[Bo Diddley]

I need to win the lottery and plant out where I go.

I'm pretty sure the next year's seedlings would revert to thorny brambles. My dogs would appreciate a thornless bramble patch I'm sure

 

[SikaSeeker]

Either way, the aim is to breed an animal that's fit for the intended purpose, whether that's work or food.

You’re going to breed a dog for its working ability, so exactly so not gor a short tail but how it excels at work.

 

[nick.308]

+1 for docking last 1/3 of tail. 3 spaniels here, 2 docked, 1 not. Every year the undocked ends up covered in blood and her cage.
Unless you work spaniels in heavy cover you wouldnt understand. they are just machines that stop at nothing and are battered the next day. Usually lame and swollen around their eyes. And thats because they see the red mist and are in a frenzy like a XL bully but thankfully just after the game bird.
Welcome the selective breeding but until then id prefer docked.

 

[VSS]

.

Tell you what, breed yourself a strain of sheep that don't need their tails and balls removed with rubber rings and this time next year you’ll be a millionaire.
You’ll make even more money if you can stop their hooves from needing to be trimmed and fleece from growing out of their arseholes where it accumulates flies and shite.
I’ll up the odds to 2 more pints.

You're a bit behind the times.
All this is being done.
Tails are being bred shorter.
Castration is no longer needed due to selection for faster growth rates, meaning lambs are slaughtered before sexual maturity.
Natural wool-shedding (and woolless) commercial breeds have been developed.
Dag-free sheep are also actively selected for, through a dag scoring system and by developing a genetic resistance/resilience to the parasites that cause shitty bums.
Routine hoof trimming is largely a thing of the past, due to better husbandry methods and genetic selection.

A question for all those who disagree with my opinions re: natural tail shortening through genetic selection:
What do you think of hip scoring dogs, and only breeding from the good ones?
The principle is exactly the same.

 

[barbel]

Had working dogs for a very long time, my cockers face the thorn bushes, pick up, etc, always had them docked, seen on the beats when not, looks like rats tails with blood , would not want to put my dogs through that , when they get older, dock asap , personally never had the problem, so stick to that, dread to think wagging its tail all the time, especially around coffee tables, door frames etc, seen that too, blood every where, no stick to what i know.

 

[Dunwaters]

You're a bit behind the times.
All this is being done.
Tails are being bred shorter.
Castration is no longer needed due to selection for faster growth rates, meaning lambs are slaughtered before sexual maturity.
Natural wool-shedding (and woolless) commercial breeds have been developed.
Dag-free sheep are also actively selected for, through a dag scoring system and by developing a genetic resistance/resilience to the parasites that cause shitty bums.
Routine hoof trimming is largely a thing of the past, due to better husbandry methods and genetic selection.

Well then now that the sheep are sorted you should have lots of time to to concentrate on the dogs.
But as I’ve pointed out previously, the problem doesn’t exist elsewhere because they can choose to dock.
Tail docking itself isn’t the problem, its been a proven and satisfactory solution for centuries, the problem is that that a somewhat extreme animal welfare ideology on these islands has made it extremely difficult to find a vet who is prepared to do it.
Strangely, the same vet has no problem removing dew claws on puppies or amputating the tail of an adult dog once damage has occurred.

A question for all those who disagree with my opinions re: natural tail shortening through genetic selection:
What do you think of hip scoring dogs, and only breeding from the good ones?
The principle is exactly the same.

You’ll have to select and breed primarily for tail length, rather than working ability, its the hard working, hard driving dogs that suffer damage, but thats precisely the hound I want to own work and breed from.
Breeding for a desired physical conformation rather than working ability is what has caused the split between show and working dogs and virtually all of the hereditary health problems common with some breeds.
No thanks, I’ll breed for working ability and dock as or if required.
Its not ideal, but its the lesser evil, which is precisely why we have retained the legal right to dock our working dogs.

 

[Lloyd90]

yes they do but a Spaniel looking for one deer is not even close to doing the work of one pushing small game. Surprised I need to point out the difference to be honest.

The fact you have to point out the difference just proves what I said earlier.

Those claiming they have undocked “working spaniels” are simply pet owners that take their pets onto a shoot a handful of times.

Look up any of the top trainers for spaniels / books etc or anyone well known and successful in it, they won’t have an undocked spaniel.

 

[Beretta V]

Just an old fashioned practice not really needed, imo.
If people want shorter tailed dogs then breeders should be breeding them with shorter tails, not cutting them off. It wouldn't be difficult to do.

My daughter's working spaniel (deer tracking) isn't docked, and has no issues. Neither of my terriers are docked, and no issues there either.

They dock sheep don’t they?

 

[VSS]

They dock sheep don’t they?

See post #43

 

[baguio]

You're a bit behind the times.
All this is being done.
Tails are being bred shorter.
Castration is no longer needed due to selection for faster growth rates, meaning lambs are slaughtered before sexual maturity.
Natural wool-shedding (and woolless) commercial breeds have been developed.
Dag-free sheep are also actively selected for, through a dag scoring system and by developing a genetic resistance/resilience to the parasites that cause shitty bums.
Routine hoof trimming is largely a thing of the past, due to better husbandry methods and genetic selection.

A question for all those who disagree with my opinions re: natural tail shortening through genetic selection:
What do you think of hip scoring dogs, and only breeding from the good ones?
The principle is exactly the same.

Your theories are obviously sound Tim. The problem is that not docking spaniels as puppies reduces their value as working dogs to almost zero which means that they will go to pet homes when they're not the perfect pet. They will therefore never grow up to show their full potential as they wont be worked. Hip scoring is carried out on mature dogs. Even dogs with high scores can be worked for a decent length of time just like your sheep that show undesirable traits still make you money although you're unlikely to breed from them.

 

[VSS]

Your theories are obviously sound Tim. The problem is that not docking spaniels as puppies reduces their value as working dogs to almost zero which means that they will go to pet homes when they're not the perfect pet. They will therefore never grow up to show their full potential as they wont be worked. Hip scoring is carried out on mature dogs. Even dogs with high scores can be worked for a decent length of time just like your sheep that show undesirable traits still make you money although you're unlikely to breed from them.

Sure.
The dog breeding world has the same problems as the sheep breeding world: resistance to change; a stubborn adherence to outdated practices.

Those breeders who are prepared to stick their neck out and think outside the box may be mocked now, but they'll be the ones who are laughing when legislation forces change.

I can remember a very good presentation at a genetics conference that I attended, in which the speaker said that if we want to stay ahead in the game we need to be breeding what customers will be looking for in 5 years time, not simply producing more of whatever it was they bought last year. And he was dead right.

Hence, for example, why I have DNA sampled all of my sheep to identify the ones with a natural genetic resistance to certain internal parasites so that I can selectively breed for that characteristic. OK, so we have drugs to treat the parasites, so why bother? Buyers aren't yet asking for parasite resistance when purchasing breeding stock. But the drugs we have are reducing in efficacy and coming under tighter control, so in 5 or so years time buyers will needing to acquire naturally resistant bloodlines. I will be in a position to supply them. The head-in-the-sand breeders won't.

 

[jimmy milnes]

The need for docking varies with the breed and what it does.
My GSP’s need to be docked because they work tight cover and have a lot of tail action, the end of the tail gets damaged and is slow to heal, even when it does heal it doesn’t take a lot to damage it again and eventually you end up with a lot of scar tissue that won’t heal and an amputation.
Spaniels are the same if worked for small game, kept mostly at heel and worked on deer you may get away with not docking.

Breeding short tailed dogs from long tailed dogs isn’t as easy as you suggest either, the gene has to come from somewhere outside the current pool which means an outcross and a few generations of careful line breeding to fix the new conformation.
Then you’ll need a new breed standard.
Your KC frowns on outcrosses and refuses to register x bred pups….which excludes your dog from competition.
The easiest solution I’ve found is to pre sell most of the pups to working homes and have the litter docked at birth.

And also if breeding for a shorter tail then what other traits would be compromised in your stock to enable you to have an dog to breed from? If only one of the puppies had the desired shorter tail but was undershot would it be bred from or would you writeoff the whole litterand try again in 12 months ?

 

[baguio]

Sure.
The dog breeding world has the same problems as the sheep breeding world: resistance to change; a stubborn adherence to outdated practices.

Those breeders who are prepared to stick their neck out and think outside the box may be mocked now, but they'll be the ones who are laughing when legislation forces change.

I can remember a very good presentation at a genetics conference that I attended, in which the speaker said that if we want to stay ahead in the game we need to be breeding what customers will be looking for in 5 years time, not simply producing more of whatever it was they bought last year. And he was dead right.

Hence, for example, why I have DNA sampled all of my sheep to identify the ones with a natural genetic resistance to certain internal parasites so that I can selectively breed for that characteristic. OK, so we have drugs to treat the parasites, so why bother? Buyers aren't yet asking for parasite resistance when purchasing breeding stock. But the drugs we have are reducing in efficacy and coming under tighter control, so in 5 or so years time buyers will needing to acquire naturally resistant bloodlines. I will be in a position to supply them. The head-in-the-sand breeders won't.

Not sure that anyone would be mocked or why they would? However, docked tails and other issues are so different that it's just not possible IMO to pursue. We're comparing this with your sheep with undesirable traits being worthless like the spaniels would be with undocked tails. I guess it does come down to money but those who lose their money will probably be dead before there is any noticeable change in the lengths of their dogs tails. Theses same breeder would lose their names in the competition world because they would be unable to work their long tailed spaniels to any standard. It really would be that debilitating to the top working spaniel.

 

[VSS]

Not sure that anyone would be mocked or why they would? However, docked tails and other issues are so different that it's just not possible IMO to pursue. We're comparing this with your sheep with undesirable traits being worthless like the spaniels would be with undocked tails. I guess it does come down to money but those who lose their money will probably be dead before there is any noticeable change in the lengths of their dogs tails. Theses same breeder would lose their names in the competition world because they would be unable to work their long tailed spaniels to any standard. It really would be that debilitating to the top working spaniel.

No.
By tail scoring pups prior to docking, you would identify the ones with the trait you're looking for to potentially breed from (if they also satisfy your other selection criteria). They could then be docked as normal, to satisfy the current market demand. You'd keep doing it that way, until you reached the point where docking was no longer necessary. I reckon that it would probably take about 10 years to get to that point, if you had a large enough gene pool to work with. Which means it would need to be actively encouraged by breeders' associations. If they were forward thinking they'd be doing this, but in my experience breeders' associations are anything but forward thinking.

 

[baguio]

No.
By tail scoring pups prior to docking, you would identify the ones with the trait you're looking for to potentially breed from (if they also satisfy your other selection criteria). They could then be docked as normal, to satisfy the current market demand. You'd keep doing it that way, until you reached the point where docking was no longer necessary. I reckon that it would probably take about 10 years to get to that point, if you had a large enough gene pool to work with. Which means it would need to be actively encouraged by breeders' associations. If they were forward thinking they'd be doing this, but in my experience breeders' associations are anything but forward thinking.

The tail length is the only thing that you could get at birth. All of the other things require age. The spaniel reaches it's peak at approx 5 years old. I reckon it would take over 100 years and then only if docking was banned so that every adult going out to work had long tails.

 

[VSS]

The tail length is the only thing that you could get at birth. All of the other things require age. The spaniel reaches it's peak at approx 5 years old. I reckon it would take over 100 years and then only if docking was banned so that every adult going out to work had long tails.

Whatever.
It might've taken 100 years 100 years ago, but we have better tools in the box now, so the generations can be turned over more quickly based on accurate predictions of the outcome of matings.
But I feel we're going around in circles now, so before I quit this discussion, you could at least agree with the following statements:

1) An outright ban on docking remains a distinct possibility.
2) In the event of such a ban, a strain of working spaniels with naturally short tails would be desirable.
3) It would be a worthwhile exercise to attempt to produce such a strain, provided that doing so didn't negatively impact other desirable traits.

 

[baguio]

Whatever.
It might've taken 100 years 100 years ago, but we have better tools in the box now, so the generations can be turned over more quickly based on accurate predictions of the outcome of matings.
But I feel we're going around in circles now, so before I quit this discussion, you could at least agree with the following statements:

1) An outright ban on docking remains a distinct possibility.
2) In the event of such a ban, a strain of working spaniels with naturally short tails would be desirable.
3) It would be a worthwhile exercise to attempt to produce such a strain, provided that doing so didn't negatively impact other desirable traits.

Remember that you're breeding sheep every year. Not the same with dogs that likely only have 2 litters in their lifetime. That alone will be a limiting factor. Bitches are unlikely to be bred before they're two and probably 3. Currently, if they have tiny tails but are, for example noisy or lethargic, they won't be bred from. This will slow down genetic breeding massively.

 

[finbar]

Just an old fashioned practice not really needed, imo.
If people want shorter tailed dogs then breeders should be breeding them with shorter tails, not cutting them off. It wouldn't be difficult to do.

My daughter's working spaniel (deer tracking) isn't docked, and has no issues. Neither of my terriers are docked, and no issues there either.

It's not a case of what would be "allowed" or not, it's a case of whether any individual breeder (or, better still, breeders' association) has sufficient foresight to introduce tail length into their selection criteria alongside the other characteristics that they currently select for. You wouldn't select for tail length to the exclusion of all else.

No different from selectively breeding any livestock. For example, I ultrasound scan the loins of all my lambs in order to rank them for muscularity and potential lean meat yield, so that I can actively select to retain breeding stock that will produce better carcasses. But I'd be a fool if that was all I selected for! I also collect data that enables me to select for a wide range of other economically significant characteristics such as litter size, maternal ability, longevity, mature size, etc etc. The use of DNA sampling and genomic has accelerated the process no end due to the increased accuracy of the predicted outcome of proposed matings.

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