Is Docking right?

[Twisterdog]

I think that there are many, many more important issues that dog lovers should be concentrating on, rather then bickering about tail docking.

There are tens of thousands of dogs dying every day because there are not enough homes for all of them. There are dogs being tortured in research labs. There are dogs starving to death. There are dogs being tortured to death before being eaten, because high adrenalin levels at death are supposed to make the dog meat taste better. There are dogs being gassed at shelters, sometimes with hot car exhaust fumes, because cities don't allocate the funds to euthanize humanely. These are the issues dog lovers ought to be spending their time, energy, money and voice fighting. Not something as petty as tail docking.

If a dog has a loving home for its entire life, perhaps sixteen to eighteen years, what difference does it make if those loving owners prefer the dogs tail docked or not? If a dog is lucky enough to find someone to feed it, love it, take it to the vet and provide a safe, warm home for it in this cruel world ... who cares whether it has a long tail or not?

Docking a puppy's tail at a day or two old is not the huge, agonizing tragedy some would make it out to be. I've seen many tail dockings. Done properly, it is over in a matter of seconds ... kind of like getting your ears pierced. Getting its tail docked in no way, shape or form traumatizes a dog for life.

Is it necessary? In most cases, no. Is it cosmetic? Sure. Is it important enough an issue to cause a rift in the dog fancy? Certainly not. Instead of worrying about dogs getting their tails docked, please go volunteer at a shelter and help save some dogs' lives. Long or short tails, they all want to live.

Also, I'd just like to add this: dogs with docked tails still have tails. I've seen so many posts that make it sound like the dog's whole tail it cut off, and it has no tail whatsoever to wag. That is not the case at all, unless maybe with some "home crop" job, where the idiots didn't know what they were doing. Several of my dogs have cropped tails (already done when I rescued them as adults) and several have natural tails. The natural tails are about eight inches long, and the docked tails are about four inches long ... but everone still has a tail!