Cropping ears....dogs

[CathrynRose]

The gestures they make when you speak to them... the ears add to their personality.

I agree 1000%!!! I say to my husband all the time (because we got Charley at 17 mos - so the previous owner 'could have' cropped) that Im SO happy he isnt cropped. His ears are absolutely fantastic!

 

[CathrynRose]

Look at 'dem ears!

ANd if you crop you cant get action shots like this, with ear movement :

 

[AnnaS]

I don't mean to highjack this thread - I was just about to start a new one and wil after this.

We just got a Boxer yesterday and he is 9 1/2 weeks old. His tail is already docked - is that the word?

We are definitely going to leave his ears alone.

 

[GreatDaneMom]

I am truly content with my decision (now that I've made it) thanks to all of you. It is an end to three weeks of anguish and back and forth. I feel so much better. I even spoke with the vet tech today who confided that they mostly just see breeders cropping anymore. She discreetly told me that she thought I had made a great decision. Thanks again for all the insightful viewpoints!

I don't think you'll regret your decision. We faced the same decision 4 years ago when we got our Dane puppy. Today we just love those big old floppy ears and we can't imagine him without them. Thank goodness for the vet who talked some sense into us when the breeder was pressuring us to crop. I don't think that breeder will ever sell us another dog but we can sleep at night...well when the Dane moves over we can anyway!

 

[luvsmickeymouse]

I don't think you'll regret your decision. We faced the same decision 4 years ago when we got our Dane puppy. Today we just love those big old floppy ears and we can't imagine him without them. Thank goodness for the vet who talked some sense into us when the breeder was pressuring us to crop. I don't think that breeder will ever sell us another dog but we can sleep at night...well when the Dane moves over we can anyway!

What a beautiful dog, EARS and all. I love non cropped ears. My poodle has her tail docked, she came that way, if it were up to me, it would have never been done.

 

[PrincessKitty1]

I don't think you'll regret your decision. We faced the same decision 4 years ago when we got our Dane puppy. Today we just love those big old floppy ears and we can't imagine him without them. Thank goodness for the vet who talked some sense into us when the breeder was pressuring us to crop. I don't think that breeder will ever sell us another dog but we can sleep at night...well when the Dane moves over we can anyway!

Your Great Dane is so adorable!!

I always tell my DH, "The only purpose for a dog's ears and tail are to express emotion." Floppy ears and a long waggy tail are so cute!

 

[minkydog]

We have a Standard Poodle who was a rescue. He did not have his tail docked, so he has this lovely long "flag" tail. It's really striking--and he can clear a table in under 5 seconds

 

[Linzybrooke]

Dew claws are a bit different...

Removing dew claws isn't just a vanity issue. It can be a preventive measure from future injury.

A dew claw is essentially an "extra toe" higher up on the inside of a dog's foot (you can see it here)

Because the claw never touches the ground it cannot be naturally worn down and if not carefully watched and maintained it can get caught in just about anything. Even if you do keep an eye on it and keep it well maintained, it can get caught on things.

I had a dog who got his dew claw caught in the knot end of a rawhide bone (this was several years ago when I though rawhides were okay treats)...he pulled the claw/nail right off! It just kept bleeding and we ended up at the emergency vet for a very expensive "surgery". His dew claw grew back.

I have a dog now who has several extra toes/dew claws. Unfortunately they were never removed and I wish they had been. They must be constantly checked and watched!

I'm not sure when the best time is to remove dew claws but after seeing injuries to them, it's a different issue entirely from ears and tails.

Our vet offered to remove our pom's dewclaw when she was spayed. It was great because she was out for it and we only had to pay for the anesthesia one time. Not sure if all vets would do the same, but it worked out well for us! We hadn't even thought of doing it before, but she asked and then provided all the same examples you did about it getting caught, getting pulled out, etc.

To the OP, I'm glad you are comfortable with your decision. Decisions like that are tough to make sometimes! My sister has a mini-schnauzer that they had his ears cropped...they look bad, two different angles. But, Stitch is still such a cutie!

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I am truly content with my decision (now that I've made it) thanks to all of you.

When I think of cropping, Beautiful Joe always comes to mind. (Sorry, couldn't decide which link to post.)

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/saunders/joe/joe.html (Contains the book)

http://www.farmanddairy.com/columns/take-this-story-about-beautiful-joe-to-heart/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/barbian7/195596281/

http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM195Z

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

I'm glad you decided not to crop. Cutting off ears or tails for cosmetic purposes is abuse in my opinion. I remember seeing one of those animal cops shows and they were taking away a dog who had been abused. While it was not the only thing or the most serious thing, they cited the cropped ears as evidence of abuse.

 

[daisax]

Beautiful Joe was my favorite book as a child, and probably influenced my getting into boxers. However, his ears were chopped off with an axe, which is a little different from a laser procedure under general anesthesia. I agree with the circumcision comparison, and understand the positions people have on both sides of it, but think comparing veterinary surgical cropping with what fighting dog people do is a false comparison.

While I don't crop any more, mostly because I couldn't reconcile the anesthesia risk with the cosmetic surgery aspect, I will say that I've never seen anything approaching "suffering" from the puppies afterward.

Tails are done at 3 days old using virtually the same process as extra finger removal from human infants (which happens more than you'd think, and yes, they're just snipped off). After a certain number of days once further development has occurred it becomes an amputation, and most ethical breeders won't do it.

 

[christiane]

OP..I thank you for not cropping, but more importantly I think your puppy would like to thank you for not cropping!!

 

[PrincessKitty1]

Beautiful Joe was my favorite book as a child, and probably influenced my getting into boxers. However, his ears were chopped off with an axe, which is a little different from a laser procedure under general anesthesia. I agree with the circumcision comparison, and understand the positions people have on both sides of it, but think comparing veterinary surgical cropping with what fighting dog people do is a false comparison.

While I don't crop any more, mostly because I couldn't reconcile the anesthesia risk with the cosmetic surgery aspect, I will say that I've never seen anything approaching "suffering" from the puppies afterward.

Tails are done at 3 days old using virtually the same process as extra finger removal from human infants (which happens more than you'd think, and yes, they're just snipped off). After a certain number of days once further development has occurred it becomes an amputation, and most ethical breeders won't do it.

Don't tails have bones in them? In my experience (again in the newborn nursery), any extra digits with bones in them were taken off surgically under anesthesia, not just snipped off. The extra digits without bones in them (similar to a dogs dewclaw) were much more common, and were tied off with sutures to cut off the blood supply so the digit would just fall off. It would take a few days for the digits to fall off, and any nurse can tell you it WAS painful. The folks who said it wasn't painful were the physicians who did the procedure and never saw the babies again. Because you know, "babies don't feel pain." Those of us who spent 8 hours a day with the babies in the nursery knew better.

I just find it impossible to believe that cutting off a puppy's tail is not painful. There are bones, nerves, and a blood supply in a tail. And I have never seen a human digit "just snipped off" but somebody with more recent nursery experience (my experience is 20 years back) might know better.

In any case, it would be extremely hard to convince me that you can cut off something that has bones, nerves, and a blood supply, and that it won't hurt.