Todays debate – prophylactic tail docking
February 28, 2007Today I went to a public debate at Uni about the prophylactic docking of dogs’ tails. It was expected that it might get a bit heated, and Uni had ordered extra security. While its not something that I’m particularly interested in, it was quite fun and I think that its always quite nice to see people get passionate about the things that they believe in.
I really enjoyed it, and there were lots of good points raised but I don’t think that anyone left with a point of view that was different to the one they arrived with.
The ‘for’ sides argument seemed to mainly revolve around the fact that if tails weren’t docked as puppies, they might be injured and cause pain to adult dogs. The stats that were given varied, from 1-35% of undocked dogs’ whoses breeds were traditionally docked had tail injuries later in life. So, to avoid this all dogs’ tails should be docked. To me, this was the equivalent of saying that some humans break their arms, so we should amputate the arms of babies.
Dog breeders were represented by a bunch of middle aged women, whether this is due to dog breeders mainly being middle aged women, or only the fact that the only dog breeders that see fit to debate docking are the middle aged women, I’m not sure. But, from a psych point of view I would have been interested in what Freud would have had to say about the fact that so many middle aged women were pro-tail docking….
It was really cool to go to something like that for a change. I’m dead bored of studying by day, go home and either watch TV with housemates, or do something creative but alone.
Excellent comments, glad you enjoyed it and very glad you saw through the barely veiled attempt on the other side’s part to continue docking for the show ring.
As for the psych, hhhmmm…
Hello, you wrote “To me, this was the equivalent of saying that some humans break their arms, so we should amputate the arms of babies”.
Do you also advocate the cessation of all immunisation of babies?
Regards,
Peter
‘I don’t think that anyone left with a point of view that was different to the one they arrived with’ says it all really.
Some of us middle aged dog breeders have been dedicated to the betterment of our breeds for 15-20 years, so we were not middle aged when we started !
In Scandanavia there is an alarming rise in clinical amputations required in working dogs (because they imposed a total docking ban).
Only 300 of my breed are born in the UK every year, almost all are docked because they are a working breed and will suffer because of the public lobbies that ‘have already made up their minds’.
The reality is tail docking will continue for as long as any reputable breeder who cares about the welfare of their puppies throughout their lives can leggal get a vet to perform the operation.
Of course, we could always stop breeding – then the anti-dog lobby in the UK will win.
Before I reply, I’d just like to reiterate the fact that this isn’t a topic I know a great deal about. This is just my opinion based on the facts that I was given during the debate. It isn’t something that I myself have researched.
Firstly, I don’t advocate the cessation of immunisation of babies. Nor do I advocate the immunisation of puppies. I do however, think that there is a great difference between an injection and (what in my opinion constitutes as) unnecessary mutilation. This however, is beside the point. As Emma mentioned during the debate, the subject of the debate was the prophylactic docking of dogs tails, not immunisation, castration or any other procedure.
I shall expand upon ‘I don’t think that anyone left with a point of view that was different to the one they arrived with’. As far as I was aware, the only people at the debate who were in favour of docking were dog breeders. They were there to argue their case. They were not there to be persuaded otherwise, or to take what the ‘against’ side had on board. I’m a psychology student, and the dog breeders present at the debate fit beautifully into Leon Festinger’s (1957) Cognitive dissonance theory. If a dog breeder continued to dock the tails of their dogs despite evidence that this practice was wrong, that breeder would then experience discomfort. The breeder would then seek to reduce this discomfort, which could be done by either changing their behaviour (stop docking the tails)or by coming up with reasons to justify their behaviour (believing that they are actually reducing the pain the dog will experience in the long run).
The fact is, there wasn’t a single point raised that (again, in my opinion) justified prophylactic tail docking. One gentleman who was a member of BASC even stood up to say that he took his undocked dog on shoots with him and had no problems.
As I’ve said, this isn’t a topic which I’m passionate about, and I am prepared to be convinced that tail docking should be allowed, if someone gives me a good argument. As of yet that hasn’t happened.
Mr McCullough, your point about a rise in Scandinavia makes no sense as far as I can see it. Of course clinical amputations will have gone up! If we just consider the breeds whose tails are docked, prior to the ban there will have been a 0% rate of tail amputations because the dogs didn’t have any tails to amputate. After the ban, yes some dogs will require clinical amputations due to injury – no one has denied this. But what is ‘alarming’? (apart from emotive?) Exactly what percentage of working dogs which were traditionally docked require amputations?