Maybe this is another good reason to think before docking and ear clipping? (Yes...I'm off on it AGAIN!!!!) I agree that certain breeds have been victimised in the press. This, very sadly, leads to people with the wrong intentions and motives seeking out these breeds to own. This leads to more horror stories, etc. etc.
(Another bulletin board I visited had a huge debate about American Pit Bulls and some of the owners were so concerned about the breed image and told such heart warming stories of their own dogs I read on for quite a while. Every tenth or so post, though, was from someone bragging what knew species they had got their dog to attack on sight, or which part of the anatomy they were training their dog to bite first. It was sickening in the extreme. These are the people regulations should be imposed for!)
By docking and clipping we are, I feel, preventing perfectly friendly, social dogs from being accepted. Docked and clipped dogs do look different and are, to many people, unpredictable as their intentions are not clear.
My own dog is 100% kid proof but I never allow anyone to approach him unless they ask. It's not polite and it's not a safe practice.
My children are well drilled in the procedure, although it is amazing how many adults choose to ignore children who are being polite and sensible.

A few weeks ago I was waiting to take my kids into school. The lady in front of me had a beautiful Weirmeraner sitting patiently at heel. It was on a lead and seemed fairly relaxed. A little girl in front of them turned around to look at the dog. The dog's lady was aware of her, the girl was about three years old and at eye level to the dog. The girl's mother had no idea that a dog was behind them and the dog's owner was the one who got so close to those in front. When the little girl had been staring in wonder for a few seconds the dog lunged forward barking. The owner was ready for it and had the dog on a very short lead. I was just about to tell the woman what her dog was going to do when it happened. I walked forward and said, rather angrily, "I knew that was going to happen and so did you! Why didn't you stop it?"
"Yeah, but the stupid little brat won't do it again, will she?" was the rather self satisfied answer I got. When there are people, with dogs, acting like that .....

As a community of dog people I believe we should do all we can to educate our dogs about children and our children about dogs but it seems that there are people who really believe that three year olds deserve to be frightened and dogs deserve to be tarnished in the eyes of the public and rewarded by their owners for behaving in this way.
By cutting off the bits of the dog that are the biggest signs to people of how they feel and how they are going to act, aren't we making the situation a bigger hurdle to overcome?
I agree it is wrong to judge every dog by the few but I also feel there are so many things we could do to make it easier for everyone to accept dogs in the community.

Finally, sorry everyone, I know most of you have heard it all before from me and are getting pretty sick of me banging on about it.