Leaving tails on traditionally docked breeds and showing them in AKC conformation...

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=didgery;5893905]
The problem with this argument is that there is NOT an objective standard for “where the abuse line is,” for “what is unacceptable, abusive practices.” I would absolutely put padding a TWH, disbudding a goat or calf without anesthetic, or cropping a dog’s ears for aesthetics in the “unacceptable, abusive practices” basket but all three are common and legal here in the U.S. There was a time when child labor was legal, where burning one’s wife was legal, and when chaining and whipping a slave was legal. Without the push of concerned, compassionate people against the social standard of “where the abuse line is,” those standards would never have shifted. I hope that animal welfare advocates keep pushing on some of these issues. I realize there are folks who go further—who say I shouldn’t milk my goat or ride my mule—and I don’t know the answer to that dilemma. If riding my mule were made illegal but at the same time I were promised that no more animals would be subjected to the agony of a factory farmed life and death, I’d take that trade.[/QUOTE]

Others, on the other hand, will say that they accept that some we do is not ideal, maybe some even harmful to a point, but giving up our use of animals is not sensible.

That is the difference between animal rights proponents and the rest of us, that can see our place in this world for us AND our domestic animals as symbiotic.
We as humans do plenty that is not ideal, some even harmful, to achieve our goals and it is ok to do that with our animals also.
We would not have any kids playing sports, they may get hurt, adults working in many less than ideal situations, do so much we do, if we didn’t accept some risks and some less than ideal consequences from what we do.

Animal rights followers want an ideal world according to their ideas of what is ideal.
I disagree that they are being sensible, especially when they demand we don’t use animals at all, because some uses are less than ideal.
Some Posters here that are AR defenders have stated they are fine with humans gone from the earth, so animals not be harmed.
Where is the sense in THAT?:eek:

[wendy]

Dew claws have NOTHING to do with balance. They don’t hit the ground, they are not weight bearing and if ANYTHING they would be a speed hindrance as they would catch the wind.

Yes they do indeed bear weight, and have function. Many dogs (one of mine does) use their dewclaws so much they wear them down to the point of not needing them to be trimmed very often.

Excerpt from With A Flick of the Wrist
by Chris Zink, DVM, PhD
(as seen in Dogs In Canada – September 2003)

In the last several years, while doing sports-medicine consultations for performance dogs
across Canada and the United States, I have seen many canine athletes with carpal arthritis.
Interestingly, this condition is much more common in dogs that have had their
front dewclaws removed.

To understand why, it is helpful to understand the structure of the carpus. This joint consists of
seven bones that fit together like fieldstones that are used to build the walls of a house
The carpus joins to the radia and ulnar bones (equivalent to our lower arm), and to the
metacarpal bones (equivalent to our hand). Each bone of the carpus has a convex or concave side
that matches a curve on the adjacent bone. Unlike the bones of the elbow, for example.

The elbow bones have ridges that slide into interlocking grooves the bones of the carpus do not
have ridges that slide into interlocking grooves on the adjacent bone. The relatively loose fit of
the carpal bones is supported by ligaments that join each of the carpal bones to the adjacent
bones.

With so many carpal bones that don’t tightly interlock with the adjacent bones, the ligaments of
this joint can be easily stretched and even torn when torque (twisting) is applied to the leg. The
dewclaws have the important function of reducing the torque that is applied to
the front legs, especially when dogs are turning at a canter (the main gait used
in agility).

In the canter, there is a moment during each stride when the dog’s accessory carpal pad (on the
back of the carpus) of the lead front leg touches the ground and the rear legs and other front
leg swing forward to prepare for the next stride. At this point, the dewclaw is in contact with
the ground and if the dog turns, the dewclaw can dig in for extra traction to prevent
unnecessary torque on the front leg. Without the gripping action of the dog’s ‘thumbs’ there is
more stress on the ligaments of the carpus. This may cause the ligaments to stretch and tear
over time, resulting in joint laxity and ultimately, arthritis.

Want to read more?
http://www.beautdogs.com/smartypants/tails.htm
This article has a photo of a dog doing agility and you can clearly see the dog’s dew claws being used
as support. Enjoy!

[moonriverfarm]

To me any unnecessary body modification on an animal is cruel. JMO

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=moonriverfarm;5894107]
To me any unnecessary body modification on an animal is cruel. JMO[/QUOTE]

Right, unnecessary is the word here.

We geld because it is necessary in most environments we will be keeping and using our horses.
The same with dehorning, as horns are used by young to hurt others in play and as they mature to establish themselves.
We left horns on replacement heifers because we thought they could fend predators better, but after later having muley, hornless breeds, that didn’t have any problem defending themselves and their calves, we dehorned them all.
It was much better for all, when some bully cows would not run around hooking others and do damage with their horns.

There generally are good reasons for most we do in our standards of animal husbandry.

I question when we fall from trying to do it better, to do harm by that, as in keeping some pet animals alive past a reasonably good quality of life, as we can see here time and again.

Questions, that is what helps us do the best job of caring for our animals we can, keeping questioning what we do and why, not following bandwagons and glib answers.

[S1969]

I don’t know about dewclaws…sure they might be useable by some dogs, but a lot of other dogs have trouble with them. My boarder just had to bring his 5 year old golden to the vet this week to get a dewclaw stitched for the 4th or 5th time, all quite painful and bloody. He is going to have them removed, and is wishing bitterly that it had been done when she was a puppy instead of as an adult.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=S1969;5894340]
I don’t know about dewclaws…sure they might be useable by some dogs, but a lot of other dogs have trouble with them. My boarder just had to bring his 5 year old golden to the vet this week to get a dewclaw stitched for the 4th or 5th time, all quite painful and bloody. He is going to have them removed, and is wishing bitterly that it had been done when she was a puppy instead of as an adult.[/QUOTE]

Declawing, as so much else, is not without consequences, but we do it for good reason most times.
We only had one toy poodle with declaws, she came from a puppy mill and by the time she was spayed, she had to have vet attention for a snagged declaw twice.
They were taken off when she was spayed and never had any trouble after that and was an obedience dog.

[Kryswyn]

As I said, before that Snarky Ginger thing posted back, if agility (or those against any cosmetic surgery) people want to leave dewclaws on their dogs, then they need to work with breeders, requesting when they place a deposit on an unborn pup that the dew claws be left on. However, unless the breeder chooses to leave dewclaws on all the pups, the buyer might have to pick a pup w/in days of being born and that pup might not be the first choice for an agility prospect.

If a lack of dewclaws leads to arthritis in competitive agility dogs, it would seem to me if you acquire a dog without dewclaws and you want to do a lot of agility work, you’ll have to be extra careful with your training program being proactive so as not to create the extra stress.

Those of us whose breeds do better without dewclaws for the tasks they were bred for (like going to ground, digging etc) we’ll just carry on. And if they don’t do as well in Agility as other dogs, well, they haven’t been selectively bred for 300 years to scale blue and yellow ramps and go through weave poles. That’s a new thing.

[hitchinmygetalong]

@gloriginger;5881654

<snip>
As far as the tails, they very much help the dogs in weaving through the poles, and if you’d like, I can get you in touch with someone that will discuss this with you at great lengths and very specifically why a tail assists a dog in their ability to weave faster and more effectively, this gentleman has won the 60 pole weave challenge several times with his border collies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_LUiuByyPA <— fast forward to 1:40 to see how much the lack of a tail affects this Doberman in the weave poles.

The predominance of “tailed” dogs in wins at weave pole competitions is a direct result of the fact that they are the overwhelming majority entered. Period.

Dewclaws: I owned a GWP once that had his front dewclaws. As a hunting dog, those claws were a disaster, constantly catching on tall grass and brush in the field. After one too many injuries, they were removed - a nasty surgery as there was a lot of scar tissue and a long recuperation complete with the cone of shame. In my mind, the kindest thing for the dog would have been to have them snipped as a pup.

[Tamsin]

We breed Welsh springer spaniels, a breed that traditionally always had a docked tail. However, undocked tails are becoming more and more common and don’t seem to be penalized in the show ring. Actually, some of the top winning show dogs in the country have natural tails. While many breeders insist that the docked tail is essential, the public certainly doesn’t agree. We get many requests for puppies with the tail left undocked, but have never had a buyer insist that they want a pup with the tail removed. The UK and most European countries have long since banned docking and cropping, so it’s inevitable that natural tails and ears will appear in the show ring and gradually become normal and acceptable.

Although people like to argue that tails and ears are subject to injury, there’s little evidence for this. Of course an undocked spaniel might suffer a tail injury, but these injuries are uncommon and just as likely to occur in setters, retrievers, and all of the other breeds with traditionally natural tails.

The American Veterinary Medical Association has an official position on cropping and docking: there is little evidence that these procedures benefit dogs, but are instead done for cosmetic purposes; the AVMA is opposed to the procedures and calls for their elimination from breed standards.

http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/dec08/081215c.asp

[Kryswyn]

Well, I don’t know what the dobe breeders will do about cropping ears, but any breeder can dock and do dew claws.

Tamsin, I think the reason you don’t get people asking you to dock tails is that if you are long time breeder of quality springers, they assume that you dock all tails. FWIW I think a springer’s natural tail would make it look like a little setter, and since I like setters, I think I wouldn’t mind a tail on a springer, as long as it was proportiona. If it made them look short on leg and loooooong backed, maybe not.

The predominance of “tailed” dogs in wins at weave pole competitions is a direct result of the fact that they are the overwhelming majority entered. Period.
This is the logic I was trying to point out about arthritis in agility/performance dogs who’ve had their dew claws removed. Most dogs have their dewclaws removed (at least the breeds most prominent in agility) so it follows logically that the majority of agility dogs with arthritis would not have dew claws.

As the old joke goes: Why did the white horses eat more than the black horses? Because there were more white horses than black ones!

[Kate66]

@Bluey;5893360

You bring debarking and crating as examples of how to you, that is appallingly bad animal management when you first encounter those practices.

I don’t believe I said anything was appallingly bad animal management. I said that, to me, crating and debarking, is bizarre. Bizarre meaning strange or odd.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=Kate66;5895191]
I don’t believe I said anything was appallingly bad animal management. I said that, to me, crating and debarking, is bizarre. Bizarre meaning strange or odd.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for explaining further.

I too wondered when someone pointed out the sheltie section at a conformation show and how practically all were debarked.
Now, knowing shelties, their barking can be a serious problem for a dog to live with, some are pathological barkers.
I did think it strange that so many seemed to just be debarked because of the expectation of a problem, more than a real problem.
Surely there were not so many shelties there problem barkers?:eek:

The shelties we had and those in our performance dog club, none of them were debarked, but some of them did bark more than most dogs.
That was controlled with training, so they didn’t just bark non-stop when something triggered them.

As for crating, crates really give a dog a special place of it’s own most dogs love.
All our dogs ever did, the cats too, they also had their crates, although many times they choose to use a dog crate to rest, or to annoy the dog, who knows why cats do what cats do?

[Tamsin]

[QUOTE=Kryswyn;5895175]
Well, I don’t know what the dobe breeders will do about cropping ears, but any breeder can dock and do dew claws.

Tamsin, I think the reason you don’t get people asking you to dock tails is that if you are long time breeder of quality springers, they assume that you dock all tails. FWIW I think a springer’s natural tail would make it look like a little setter, and since I like setters, I think I wouldn’t mind a tail on a springer, as long as it was proportiona. If it made them look short on leg and loooooong backed, maybe not.

This is the logic I was trying to point out about arthritis in agility/performance dogs who’ve had their dew claws removed. Most dogs have their dewclaws removed (at least the breeds most prominent in agility) so it follows logically that the majority of agility dogs with arthritis would not have dew claws.

As the old joke goes: Why did the white horses eat more than the black horses? Because there were more white horses than black ones![/QUOTE]

No, I mean that people call and request that puppy tails be left natural. They know that spaniel tails are traditionally docked, but prefer the concept and look of a natural tail. The tails on Welsh springers are setter-like (really very attractive), but undocked spaniels still look very much like spaniels.

[RougeEmpire]

I used to manage a farm for a woman that also bred Shelties. They did not bark anymore than any other breed. Her dogs were MANNERED though and they were trained. She did not make excuses “oh well Shelties bark more than others dogs”. None were debarked. When her dogs barked to much they got CORRECTED, thus none were “pathalogical barkers”.

[gloriginger]

[QUOTE=Kryswyn;5894810]
As I said, before that Snarky Ginger thing posted back…[/QUOTE]

well, bless your heart.

[Houndhill]

Re dewclaws, I have just had a litter of wolfhounds and have always removed dewclaws. A dear friend who is a greyhound breeder and I have an arrangement where I come and do her puppies, and she does mine, because it is too sad to do your own puppies! We always joked about cutting their thumbs off. This time, as I explained to someone for the nth time why we had to do this, the risk of injury, etc., it sounded kind of lame to me. I had attended a Chris Zink seminar and had seen how the dogs use their dewclaws. Anyway, my friend arrived and we sat there with puppies, hemostats, etc., and she happened to mention that she had learned there was an important acupuncture point at the base. That was all I needed to hear. My puppies still have their thumbs. One may be going to Europe where all the other wolfhounds will have their thumbs, and I would not want the others to make fun of mine if she had no thumbs. If they are injured, I may need to rethink it. I’ve had a couple of wolfhounds and a greyhound over the years who did have dewclaws and never injured them and have had some toe injuries on hounds with no dewclaws. The racing greyhounds and the foxhounds we hunt keep their dewclaws, so we will try it with this litter.

Rear dewclaws would be another story. I’ve had a couple of puppies born with double rear dewclaws with significant attachment, and I would still remove
those.

You just have to remember to cut the dewclaws when you do nails. The wolfhounds have enough coat that you really can’t tell too much when you look at their legs, it’s not offensive I think.

[Kryswyn]

Good Lord. When I think what my Jack Russells can do with OUT their dewclaws, thinking about what they could do WITH them is just another reason to take them off!

[didgery]

I’m in the camp that says leave the fronts and take the back dewclaws off when spaying or neutering. I’ve had loosely attached dewclaws catch and tear when the dog was scratching.

Front dewclaws, if they’re well-attached, seem to help stabilize a bone for gnawing.

[lauriep]

[QUOTE=didgery;5898479]
I’m in the camp that says leave the fronts and take the back dewclaws off when spaying or neutering. I’ve had loosely attached dewclaws catch and tear when the dog was scratching.

Front dewclaws, if they’re well-attached, seem to help stabilize a bone for gnawing.[/QUOTE]

You certainly don’t want to remove ANY dewclaws this late. If you are going to do it, remove them at 2-3 days, when it is a complete non-issue. Usually not even a stitch. But if you wait til spay/neuter age, it IS a big deal with much pain and recovery involved.

[didgery]

I think the detached back dewclaws (the really flappy ones, which are the ones that would worry me the most anyway) can come off during a spay. I’ve never seen it bother a dog. My adopted chihuahua had it done at age 1 and she was zooming around the next day . . . more than she should have been, but feeling fine!

I don’t usually have access to a dog at 2-3 days of age since I tend do adopt from the shelters. If I was a breeder, I’d probably remove the back dewclaws early but leave the fronts.