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Please add my name to the list of vets against docking. I now work in a country where tail docking has been banned since 1988, and the national kennel club does not allow docked dogs in the show ring. We see very little of the tail problems that the opposers of a docking ban in the UK are arguing will become such major issues if this mutilation is not allowed to continue! There may be a slightly higher incidence of congenital tail kinks in puppies from breeds where the breeding program has to rely on import of breeding stock from countries where docking still continues; this is obviously due to the fact that this is a trait that no-one has been able to see, and the breeding stock has therefore not been selected against this defect. Naturally such, usually minor, kinks are normally not a welfare problem for the individual puppies, and if all countries would stop docking, the incidence of this defect should fall after some generations of selective breeding. There are no data supporting arguments that dogs of previously docked breeds are more prone to acquired tail defects/injuries compared to other breeds – this also fits well with what myself and my colleagues experience in our daily practice. Dogs are born with tails for a reason – take away the tail, and you take away an important factor in communicating normally with other dogs!
Synnøve Haagenrud BVSc MRCVS
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