Undocked tails

[IRescue452]

I like this website, it has some nice pics of dogs without docked tails, http://www.anti-dockingalliance.co.uk/amcocker.htm. Has anybody actually heard of a dog splitting its tail except for when some groups are trying to prove that we should dock tails? I think that if so many problems were caused than countries wouldn't ban the practice of docking. I really like the American cocker spaniel picture, I wish Pepper had a tail like that. I think in America I'd have to breed my own cocker to have one with a tail though.

[wolfsoul]

You put an extra period at the end of the addy. :)

http://www.anti-dockingalliance.co.uk/amcocker.htm

I haven't heard any real horror stories. I have heard about some dogs whacking things with their tails and getting them cut, but nothing like actually breaking the tail. I know my old rottie probably would have knocked her poor tail silly. It was always goign a mile a minute. My RB American bulldog had a tail that was constantly knocking things off the table. One time his tail hit me in the face so hard my tooth went through the skin under my lip. I have a scar there now.

[cyber-sibes]

I have heard about some dogs whacking things with their tails and getting them cut, but nothing like actually breaking the tail.
funny you should say that just now --- Kiara just went to the vet and he suspects she broke her tail! (See the somethings-wrong-with-Kiara thread)
My sister-in-law used to have a bloodhound that would split his tail open on stuff all the time - in the house, in the car- she said tere would be blook spattered everywhere. But since she's a nurse, maybe she didn't mind? She said she sure loved that big ol'bloodhound!

[carrie]

Oddly, as tail injury is the reason quoted most often for docking, the breeds immediately brought to mind for this reason are breeds not commonly docked.

Dogs kept in kennel blocks tend to injure tail ends by frequently bashing a wagging tail onto a wall - I instantly think of greyhounds, not docked ( tail too useful for steering and balance when racing), foxhounds, not docked even although the very reasons for docking include injury when running/hunting through dense undergrowth, beagles (as above), otter hounds (as above), larger gun dogs (such as labs and retrievers) - interesting as smaller spaniels somehow "need" to be docked when doing the some job?

Dogs have tails for a reason. We have manipulated their appearance, life expectancy and fitness at the cost of health, quality of life, level of pain and disability they live their lives in the confines of with no thought or feeling other than we have the "right" to produce and maintain "freaks" that have no place in the natural order of the world.

We "love" our dogs ( and cats! ) and yet the debate about plastic surgery for humans who have a choice based on information that we understand and risks that each individual can ascertain for themselves rages on.

Cutting off a dog's communication tools, be it ears or tails or voice, is, in my view, unnaceptable.
It is comprable to cutting off a humans arms...other people will still understand what you say, but try to go a whole day without using your arms and hands to add meaning, emphasis and contextual information to your conversations.

Or - try to say everything for the next 24 hours with exactly the same facial expression...