I think they look absolutely adorable with natural ears and an undocked tail. They are still stunning dogs and to say they look like poorly bred black and tans shows a weird attachment to the cosmetic look of the dog.
I donât know enough about the need to dock the tails of draft horses, but as with most alterations I donât think it should be done unless itâs detrimental to the horse otherwise.
Answering before reading the whole thread but I think circumcision is barbaric as I think the aforementioned practices are. And yes I have children. And also my father was a veterinarian so as a child our cats were declawed and ears of dogs and tails were docked and cropped. As my dear father aged he stopped those practices as vet medicine evolved.
If you remember why Dobies had docked ears and tails, it was so that the enemy couldnât easily get hold of them. As weâve moved away from the WWâs, I think that everything evolved away from that mentality. I do realize that from a show perspective, they still do it, but they do alot of things to show dogs that I am not in love with.
I used to dehorn calves without local anesthesia when I was a student.
It was my impression when observing them that there wasnât any difference between the ones done with a ring block and the ones without.
(And they yelled when I gave the local. And the farmers didnât like paying âextraâ for it.)
Then I saw research looking at cortisol levels over a several day period on dehorned calves with and without anesthetic, and they were persistently elevated in the non-anesthesia groupâan indicator of stress.
So I stopped making it optional.
Now theyâre even developing some dairy cow genetics that produce naturally polled calvesâyay!
I know this thread is about horses but since dogs are in the mix now, I read on breeders page in my research to get a new puppy, that the Pembroke corgis are bred to not have tails so some are docked some donât have tails. Iâm not sure how valid this statement is but it struck me as odd.
Does anyone know the validity of that statement?
It can happen but it doesnât seem to be the norm. This is the official breed standard:
Tail - Docked as short as possible without being indented. Occasionally a puppy is born with a natural dock, which if sufficiently short, is acceptable. A tail up to two inches in length is allowed, but if carried high tends to spoil the contour of the topline.
My breed (Brittany) can be born tailless, but itâs tricky to breed for it because itâs actually causes some sort of spinal defect and will result in the puppy dying in utero. I would have to look up the genetics on that to remember why but itâs not that easy to breed for tailless in my breed, anyway.
I would have to agree, and because horses are born at a far more advanced stage than puppies, I think that docking a horseâs tail even at birth would be substantially more difficult and painful. I think the need to dock would have to be significant but if a broken tail was likely instead, maybe worth it.
Not really about you and me, or just e-collars. Itâs whether there are acceptable ways to use R- with dogs, and most people on COTH do not think so, but are entirely ok with it being used as the primary way to train horses.
Iâve had corgis years ago and did a lot of research before I bought my two. What I read and was told by several breeders is that they are all born with short tails but some are longer than the breed standard and therefore shortened. But none had the long tails like Cardigan corgis (unless they were crossed, which is a huge no-no!)
Thanks for the responses. Although Iâm waiting on the corgi (for various reasons) I think I will cross that breeder off the list. Eventually a corgi will be dog number two.
I should add, that the claim of being bred with no tails was how this particular breeder described their operation. I was not under the impression that the Pembroke corgis are like Manx cats.
Well, weâre not all R+. Dog breaks, they get physically picked up and put back where they were whoaed at. But e collars are designed for pain. Itâs more than an annoyance, or they would not stop a driven dog.
We donât infict pain in our training, for any reason, ever.
I know lots of people who say the collar is like a âtapâ. No, itâs discomfort/pain. For every one person who is using one properly, there are 100 people who need to do their homework, and/or keep their emotions out of their training.
Itâs funny you say that. Both my corgis came from the same reputable show kennel and neither of them had tails at all. But they were closely related.
No tails:
Breederâs evaluation photo of Snaffles
Snaffles at the park at 6 or 7 months
Andy after retirement from the show ring
Snaffles and Andy enjoying the snow
And just because this is a great picture of them!
Quite possibly, maybe even probably, but it crossed my mind when reading about other various weirdnesses that docking can/may cause. I mean, I havenât ever known a JRT that does it that says, âoh, itâs his patellaâ but maybe vets donât get into it with them and just itâs a JRT thing.
Yup. Up here in the GWN, youâd better have a plan (written in your SOPs) to include not only local but long-lasting pain relief. The data is definitely out there and itâs pretty easy now to say, this is the way it is and bonus, your calves will mature quicker, here are the studies.
Metacam for all the calves! You get Metacam and you get Metacam and you get Metacam!
The tails would have been docked by 3 days old when they still looked like little mice. So the first eval photo was taken long after tails had healed. Before their eyes are eve open you wouldnât know the tails had been altered.
It is possible that they were born tailless, but since the standard specifically starts with docking completely- itâs not likely.
In my breed itâs possible for a puppy to be born tailless but also just as likely that they would have a ânatural dockâ which would be shorter than normal but still might require docking to meet the breed standard.
It IS a tap, for the folks using it correctly. Just like the crops and whips you are okay with, they can be abused. You have to first train the behavior up close with conventional methods, leash/collar/etc, then add a low stim with those commands. Just like when you put your leg on a horse and they do not respond, you do NOT immediately start whacking away at their sides with a crop. The benefit of the ecollar is you can use it remotely, especially useful for hunting and working dogs that do much of their work off-leash.
Have you ever used an ecollar on yourself?
Yep, and I would NEVER put it on a dog.
If it was a sweet little cuddly non-painful device, it would not work. It is an enforcer, which has to be more uncomfortable than the behavior the dog would prefer to do.
And yes, please tell me more about the applications where the e-collar might be useful, such as huntingâŠ
I am still trying to reconcile the fact that you are okay with spurs and whips, that are certainly not cuddly, but not this use. I have put one on me, and most low settings are the same as the pulse or vibration on an Apple watch. Maybe you need to pressure the manufacturers to not allow collars with the higher settings.
I find it necessary to respond that a 3 day old puppyâs nervous system is fully developed, and feels pain just as much as an adult dogâs. Neonates arenât pinky mice.
In addition to Ghazzuâs mention of cortisol in calves, there is some compelling work from the Lancet looking at level of stress for vaccination visits in young boys who received analgesia for circumcision versus those who didnât. Preemptive pain control is important.
A reminder: in the correct hands, there is nothing wrong with an e-collar.
The problem is the vast majority of people are not âthe correct handsâ. Their timing sucks, and the dog doesnât do the behaviors reliably ANYwhere, let alone off leash in an unfenced area. If you canât get the dog to behave 100% reliably in a controlled setting, what the heck are you doing considering installing a hot button??
Itâs like giving a beginner rider those spurs. Or the draw reins.
The problem with dog people is that they want it NOW. Horse people understand that training takes years and years and years. Dog people want to have robotic obedience, ASAP. Thatâs not reality, and thatâs not fair to the animal.
Letâs put shock collar on the horses, instead of spurs and whips! Oh wait, no one would EVER do that because youâd get bucked off stat (well, except Kocher, but who knows what that abuser was doing behind closed doors). It becomes acceptable for the dog handlers to use the e-collar because thereâs no immediate consequence. Easy to be a big man with a finger on the shock button of a dog 100 yards away, eh?
Letâs do that - call them what they are, not some PR name. They arenât e-collars, theyâre SHOCK collars (that have a vibration or tone setting, sometimes).
Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPk05qYqSwk WTF is going on.
âThe first step of formal whoa training is a collar on the belly.â
No. No no no no no.
That is a very unfair statement on both horse and dog people. There are PLENTY of horse people that take short cuts all the time. We had a long discussion yesterday at our dog club training day on engagement, and how to use it to bring out the best in our dogs. Almost everyone in my breed club are also horse people, so what does that mean if they are both??
In your honor, I updated my avatar with a cuddly crop.
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