Ear Cropping/Tail Docking

[need_a_Disney_fix]

Our Lucy is a toy fox terrier/chihuahua mix. The breeders we bought her from usually offers toy fox terriers that have docked tails. I am very grateful our little Lucy has an intact tail because that curly-Q tail is AWESOME! Plus, I know the only pain she has had is from her immunizations. I can live with that.

 

[marybet]

I had a doberman once, and we had his ears cropped. I really didn't know much about it, husband at the time said the dog would look stupid if his ears weren't done. I have never felt so sorry for an animal, it hurt me to look at him. I would never do that again. It is just horrible.

 

[FluffyPumpkin78]

Dh just brought a boxer home a few weeks ago. His tail isn't cropped, nor are his ears. We won't be getting his ear or tail done, as we feel it is cruel. Champ, our boxer, does have AKC papers, but we aren't into showing, and he is scheduled to be nuetered on Wed, so no breeding.

I have heard about the tail becoming injured when they whip it around, though, so I am a little concerned about that.

In this pic you can see his tail, with the little white tip

Here is a close up of our ham!

Ham 1 and Ham 2

ETA-I did resize my pics through photobucket, but it usually takes a while for the size to adjust. Sorry they are so big!

 

[bekkiz]

Our mini had his tail docked at like 3 days old, we didn't have a choice in the matter. We decided against the ears, mostly because it's kind of mean, but mostly because he will keep that "puppy" look hit whole life.

 

[Catzeyes]

I use to breed and show Great Danes 20 years ago. All our show quality puppies were cropped, all the puppies we sold to pet homes were not.

 

[Moonmom]

I have heard about the tail becoming injured when they whip it around, though, so I am a little concerned about that.

Just browsing through here... don't have a breed that normally gets anything "docked" (that I know of, at least!) ... but the "whipping tail" made me laugh. I'm on my third greyhound... this one, Minty, has a nice "floofy" 22 & 1/2" tail that she can wag in nice big circles and create a nice cooling breeze.
Our previous grey, Moon, and I were home alone one night and I'd gone into into the basement. Just I headed upstairs I saw a flash of white & brindle go by & a tail slammed the door shute at the top of the stairs; okay..no problem.. til I got the top. the door was locked.. from the other side. Went out the basement door to the kitchen door.. kitchen door is locked..(not wearing shoes)... Called my neighbor.. his wife wasn't home.. he laughed.. and laughed.. and laughed.. when he finally stopped laughing he came with the key he had for "emergencies" and then he and my dog and his dog apparently decided I could be released from my basement prison.

 

[brasswillow]

I have had two boxers. Both with the tails done (before we got them) but not the ears(our choice). I can say with almost 100% certainty that both boxers would have injured themselves if they had tails. Our baby now, Mugzy, tries to catch her tail and I’m sure if she was able to she’d try to chew it off. As for the ears, to me, boxers with docked ears look odd. There’s just so much personality in the ears.

 

[golfgal]

Our Rat Terrier does not have a docked tail although that is breed standard, we were never planning on showing her. Their ears are not cropped. My SIL had a Mastiff, 150 lbs dog, HUGE, and his tail was not docked but it should have been, it was lethal. He broke a window just wagging his tail. For a safety issue if I ever had a dog like that I would dock it's tail.

 

[mrsltg]

Our dog is half pit-half lab (looks like a pit, disposition of a lab - fantastic combo!!!). We adopted her at three weeks (rescue). Our vet never mentioned docking her tail and I wouldn't have done it anyway. I never really looked into it, so can someone explain the reasons for doing this?

Thanks!

 

[NikiM20]

I have a Great dane and i would NEVER get his ears cropped....I think they are so cute with the floppy ears. When Ozzy runs his ears just flop all over the place I figure they were born with floppy ears why change it?
As far as the tails on Great danes, I have never heard of one being docked. And you do have to watch out for those tails. My best friend has 2 danes and she told me i would have bruised legs as long as I owned a Dane, boy was she right. It looks like I have been beat by looking at my legs. All worth it though!!

 

[DaisyD]

Great Danes generally DONT have their tails cropped. I dont think I have ever seen one with a cropped tail. Lots of people crop the ears, but I have never heard of anyone cropping the tail.

Never heard of it either. A neighbor has 3 of these dogs that she breeds and none have tails cropped.

 

[hiwaygal]

Actually, the current theory is that allergies play more of a role in ear infections than do the position of the ear. True, there are a few breeds of dogs with excessively floppy ears (Bassett Hounds, Cocker Spainels, etc.) that do tend to have more ear infections than perky ear breeds, but I've seen scores of cropped Boxers, German Shepherds, etc. with chronic ear infections. Most often cropped breeds (like those with natural standing ears) have short ear canals and a wide, high set base and don't fall into the excessively long canal category. So, in these breeds, ear infections are not a good enough excuse (imo) to justify cropping. Most of the chronic ear infection dogs I see also have seasonal allergies which is a bigger risk factor than the hang of the ear. My first Golden Retriever never had ear infections, but she also had no other allergies. All I did was use ear wash after she was bathed and it kept her ears healthy.

Thank you so much for sharing that info!!

Our golden mix has ear problems, and I know, for us, part of the reason is keeping them dry as one of our basenj's thinks she's helping by continuously cleaning them

 

[diesel]

I believe in Europe and England that the cropping of tails on dogs is illegal. Some one correct me if I'm wrong. We recently saw a State police dog that was a rottweiler with a tail. It was so beautiful. They said he was a European import.

 

[goofy4tink]

To the best of my knowledge, those breeds with their ears and tails done, had reasons behind it. Perhaps they were dogs that were used as guard dogs....the tail is wonderful to grab onto as are the ears. They would be constantly be injured in the course of doing the job.
The terriers, at least the smaller ones, were used to chase varmints down the holes...so the dog owner would grab that stub of a tail and pull the dog out when necessary. But, obviously, most of these dogs aren't doing these jobs anymore, so the need for docking/cropping has gone away.

As far as those drop ears and infections go....my golden has one ear that gets more easily infected than the other. So...weekly we drop in a few drops of a solution of half alcohol, half white vinegar. Works like a charm. He smells pretty funny for awhile but it does the trick.

 

[diesel]

I meant to say tail docking not cropping.

 

[janey99]

Our boxer has her tail docked, but natural ears. We live in the US, but she is from the UK. I like the European breed standard and would not be happy with her having a long tail. For the posters who have said it is now illegal in the UK, I wonder when that went into effect - our dog is seven and she came over already docked by the breeder's vet.

Our pitbull rescue has natural ears and tail. I'm happy his ears are natural, because I have seen some really terrible "home job" crops on PBs - looks like surgery done with broken glass, ears different sizes and/or misshapen from post surgery infection. His tail, on the other hand, I'm not sure how I feel. It is ugly and dangerous! If he whips you with it, it can leave a red mark for hours, and I think it was broken at some point in his past, so now it has a weird kink and a distasteful scaly hairless bit in the middle.

As a final point, if my vet ever said they refused to perform a procedure that I wanted, that was perfectly within the law, but that they found offensive, I'd be looking for a new vet - sorry, but you forfeit the opportunity to take my money for all those other services when you start cherry picking what you will and won't do! I'd make the same decision about my MD or my OB who started trying to limit my freedoms with their moralizing, if you know what I mean!

 

[Jynohn]

To the best of my knowledge, those breeds with their ears and tails done, had reasons behind it. Perhaps they were dogs that were used as guard dogs....the tail is wonderful to grab onto as are the ears. They would be constantly be injured in the course of doing the job.

This is the case with Great Danes. They were originally bred to hunt wild boar, and those long, floppy ears were a perfect target for the boar to grab onto. That's why their ears were cropped. Cropped ears are now a big part of the "Dane look" and uncropped Danes, while becoming more popular, are said to have a harder time competing in the show ring.

I have to admit that I like the look of the cropped Dane, it is just so regal and elegant, but I do have a hard time justifying it for a pet quality puppy. Besides the initial surgery, there is a LOT of aftercare required to get them to stand correctly, sometimes up to a year of taping.

 

[DisneyAddict_M]

I used to have a Doberman and the breeder cropped his ears and tail before I bought him. He had to wear a styrofoam cup on his head in order to train his ears to stay up...well, he was so stubborn that he kept ripping the cup off his head so that his ears never stayed up for long. He ended up having floppy cropped ears. Looked pretty silly, if you ask me.

 

[lclark0621]

This is the case with Great Danes. They were originally bred to hunt wild boar, and those long, floppy ears were a perfect target for the boar to grab onto. That's why their ears were cropped. Cropped ears are now a big part of the "Dane look" and uncropped Danes, while becoming more popular, are said to have a harder time competing in the show ring.

I have to admit that I like the look of the cropped Dane, it is just so regal and elegant, but I do have a hard time justifying it for a pet quality puppy. Besides the initial surgery, there is a LOT of aftercare required to get them to stand correctly, sometimes up to a year of taping.

I also like the look of cropped ears on a Dane. But I couldn't do it when the time came. Besides there not being a reason to, after the initial surgery (and the cost involved), there is all that ear wrapping. It seems like it is such a pain to do & do correctly.

Even though I really love the look of the cropped ears, I just cant do it. And as I write this our little girl (10 weeks old) is bouncing around the house chasing our German Shepherd's tail & her ears are flopping all over the place. It is just to cute!

I also read that cropping & docking has been outlawed in the UK. It is a recent change. So I think, soon we will be seeing more and more intact dogs in the show ring.

And a note on tails... Our German Shepherd's tail is "deadly". When he whips that thing, ya gotta watch out. He has been known to knock our living room ottaman around the room with it from one good whack. But what are you going to do? I would never think of docking his tail & I think a vet would look at me funny if I had wanted to Dock a Shepherd's tail anyway. We just say that we can tell when he is really happy by how hard he hits you with the tail...LOL!

He did have his tail injured once. Unfortunatly a kennel we used once, closed his tail in the cage door. It was awful. The wound itself was not that bad, but the amount blood was incredible. Our vet did say if it did not heal, then we would have to discuss docking. When they hurt the end of their tails, it is SO hard to get it to heal.

What we did was wrap a bandage around the tail & tapped it up well. Then we got a new thick white sock & slipped that over the tail. We tapped that down so it was impossible to get off. And we changed the bandage every day or so. The padding from the sock protected the wound for reopening when he would wag his tail. It took about 2 months, but finally healed completely.

 

[vetrik]

I had a boxer growing up that we got at 7 years old from the pound - she had been a show/breeding dog and her ears and tail were done.

I don't really have much of a problem with docked tails - I think it can serve a purpose with some dogs and it's usually done very young and they recover very quickly. I wouldn't care whether the tail was done or not for a puppy I was getting. I would never crop the ears though - that is surgery done much later in life and there is a significant recovery period. I love floppy ears!