if you buy a puppy and it used to be docked but has been born as a bobtail can you still show it, do you have to have a vets letter to say they where born that way ?

I have a breed that throws tailless,bobtailled and tailled,tailless and bobtailled can be shown,no problem,just docked need a certificate for a vet.

Our breed used to be docked (and still can if worked) and can be born tail less, short or full tailed. If puppies are not full tailed we get them vet checked within first three days and a letter stating they were born with short tails. These go in the paperwork to new homes in case of any problems if they're shown.

thankyou that is brilliant info

With the Boxers at any rate it is quite obvious if they are natural bobtails compared to docked.

The natural bobs have a pad of fat over the tail end.

As others have said you do need a letter from your vet to confirm that your pups are born naturally with bobtails.  You also need to take a copy of this if you go to a show just in case anyone asks.  Have to say I don't take the letter now to shows but there again nobody has ever queried Poppy's natural bobtail.

I don't believe there is any legal requirement to prove natural bobtails, only veterinary certification that a pup has been docked legally.

Out of a genetics-minded curiosity, I would LOVE to know what breeds naturally have a bobtail gene. I know of some already but there are obviously more. If you don't want to post on here, would you please PM me.

I'd love to know as well because I hadn't realised until it was posted just now that boxers can be bobtailed

My Vallhunds carry the bob-tail gene. In my last litter of 2 pups, 1 had a tail and 1 had a bob. The parents were a tailed dog and a bob bitch. I know my boy carries the gene as he has previously sired a litter of 5 with 4 bobs. I would never do a bob to bob mating and it's actually banned in Finland.

The other thing that indicates a natural bob is the little flag of fur at the end of it.

Interestingly I've found that pet owners prefer tails whilst exhibitors want the bobs. 

No legal requirement to prove natural bobtails but not all people understand them.
So as a safety measure I did get letters from my vet for the natural bobtails in my Boxer litter.
The one I kept does have a 'filament' type end to the tail and has a tuft/hook of hair at the end of her tail.
I do show her and used to keep the letter in the show bag incase anyone had any queries, thankfully none
in the 4 and a half years we've been showing her.

Only problem in our breed is that the 'commercial' element have got hold of the dogs and charge over the odds
for their rarity - puppy price for a bobtail tends to be £250-400 above what you pay for a tailed version from the commercial elements
which was never the intention of the 'creator' :(

Australian Shepherds can be bob-tailed

Some lines of Pembroke corgi's have it which is how it was introduced to the boxer.

You do get very short tails in Boston terriers, French bulldogs and Bulldogs also have shortened or undesirable kinked tails, but it is a different gene and I suspect the reason Bruce Cattanagh didn't use them in the Boxer experiment is that it is more than one gene responsible and at least one of the genes is linked to Spinal abnormalities.

As I understand it in Pem's, Boxers, Australian Shepherds and Vallhunds the expression of the shortened tail needs just the one gene,and to produce it at least ons parent has to be a natural Bob, and that a double dose of the gene is lethal, in that no dogs are born with two copies of the gene even if both parents are Bobs..

Bruce Cattanagth hypothesised that any individual that got two copies of the gene was not viable and died at an early stage of development (probably at the early cellular level), as there seemed no reduction in litter size it would seem that this happened before th attachment stage (about 3 weeks after mating), where the developing fertilised cells find a space in the uterine horns attach and a placenta is formed. 

It is probable that many more ova are fertilised than ever attach and go onto grow into viable puppies.

For this reason you can't get litters (statistically) of all bobtailed, statistically you will get half and half.

I hadn't realised until it was posted just now that boxers can be bobtailed

I didn't either.

My 3 brittanys,1 is tailless,1 is bobtailled and 1 is docked.Most people prefer tailless or bobtailled stock.

I've seen a few Lhasa Apsos with virually no tail too, all born that way.

Am i right in thinking Old English Sheepdogs can be bob tailed?

Pretty sure that is entirely due to docking.

What percentage of tailless/bobtails would you think to a docked bitch being mated to a tailless dog,because the bitch is docked would there be more tailed pups?

What percentage of tailless/bobtails would you think to a docked bitch being mated to a tailless dog,because the bitch is docked would there be more tailed pups?

The resulting litter could not be effected by docking as far as the genes are concerned it is a tailed dog with a bob tailed dog and the numbers of bob and tailed will be the same whether one of the dogs has a tail or is docked it can't and does not effect the genes being passed to the offspring.

Spanish Water Dogs can have bobtails and varying lengths of tails but one parents has to have a short tail.  One of my girls had two pups to a bobtailed male, one pup had a bobtail and her brother had a slightly longer tail but still very short.

It does amaze me the number of litters you see now of Boxers where supposedly all of the litter were born bobbed!

> It does amaze me the number of litters you see now of Boxers where supposedly all of the litter were born bobbed!

Surely there is a definable difference between docked and bobbed? That an educated person, judge, vet etc. can determine?

Most Spanish have a fatty part at the end of the tail, but have to say not all short tailed ones have it to the extent that others do.  The fur is usually totall different on the end of a docked dog and sometimes non-existent.

It does amaze me the number of litters you see now of Boxers where supposedly all of the litter were born bobbed!

I think you will find that these litters have been produced by those wanting to milk as much money as possible from their litters.  They are certainly NOT appearing in the show ring.

> I think you will find that these litters have been produced by those wanting to milk as much money as possible from their litters.  They are certainly NOT appearing in the show ring.

Ah yes. The ones "legally docked in ireland" etc.

There are some that have been legally docked in Ireland as there are some established boxer breeders who live over there.  However, if you attend any of the breed/general Championship shows in the UK I doubt you will be shocked by the number of docked exhibits.  I can only think of two docked puppies that I have seen at Champ shows over the last couple of years. 

The 'pups' that I have (now almost 5 years old) were born to a docked mother, father was the bobtail.
In a litter of 7 pups we had 2 bobtails.
But I've heard and seen others which have had more bobtails in their litters to same combination (i.e. docked dam, bobtailed sire
and vice versa).

To my knowledge at the moment no-one in bobtailed Boxers has tried to see if they can breed consistently for bobtail length.
So you do get varience in tail lengths, I was lucky in that both my bob's were of 'average' docked length.
I have seen some natural bob's which are a long as a traditional docked weim and some as short as a rott's dock.

I have seen ad's where some of the commercial element try to claim that all pups in a litter will produce bob tails even
those with long tails. :(  This is a lie and sadly some are taken in by these claims.
Have even challenged those that have advertised as such - they don't like it at all, even when Dr Bruce Cattanach has personally
written to them they try to wriggle. Only pups with a bobtail will produce a bobtail.

The Munich Boxer club have DQ'd the naturally short tail in the breed standard thus we aren't allowed to show them at FCI level.
But the nonsense is that I can show the litter sister who is of exactly the same parentage (i.e. the impurity of the Corgi which is what they detest) but with a naturally long tail at FCI level.

> we aren't allowed to show them at FCI level.
>

I think that may just apply to Germany? as they are certainly able to be shown in Scandinavia and Australia, or is this a recent edict?

Not recent - was applied since the Munich Boxer Club DQ'd them in their breed standard.
Certainly been in since 2008.
Thankfully in UK we aren't following the Munich Boxer Club/FCI rules and when asked Mr Irving
when he was Chair of the KC he certainly had no plans to DQ the bobtail in the Boxer breed standard.
(Phew)

Well seeing as the experiment was down with the KC permission they couldn't, what I am saying is that they can be shown in another FCI countries, in fact the Scandinavians showed most interest in having some of the stock.

the aussie bob tail needs standardising, as do tail sets! There are some funky 3/4 length tails at some odd angles about :~)

As with Vallhunds the gene has variable expression and I think it would be impossible to standardise the length of the natural bobs, you get what you get.

You only other option would be to breed bobtails out (as has happened in most lines of Pem corgis) and have all long tails by only mating full tailed to full tailed, bearing in mind that some apparently normal tailed will in fact be long bobs.

I would have thought if you bred short bob to medium bob (bearing in mind there is a bob tailed animal, I think its cats where short x short = problems ETA actually it might be the american breed Toy Fox Terriers!) and kept the best puppy WITH the shortest tail, over x number of generations you'd be able to standardise? Pixiebobs and manx typically have a set tail length, or seem to have less variation then the bobbed dog breeds.

only thing is you would be seriously reducing the gene pool for one feature, where selection for health issues etc is more important..

Yeah, although I think if you selected the best bob tail who also ticked other critera, you would dip in quality at first but eventually it would pay off. Its theoretical for me as I have a tailed breed!

I don't think that they can be shown at shows which are held under the FCI rules and regs since 1/4/2008
which is when they DQ'd the bobtail in the Boxer.

Prior to that point yes Norway/Sweden/Australia were importing Boxers with bobtails.

Other breeds with bobtails aren't DQ'd at the FCI as their respective clubs have not DQ'd the bobtail as a fault.
I think it was tried to be argued that therefore the bobtail Boxer should be allowed to stay but as the Munich Boxer Club
was the controlling club for the breed standard FCI had to accept their revision/amendment.
Not fully sure why the Munich Boxer Club felt that bobtails weren't to be included yet their fully tailed litter mates
with the same percentage of Pem Corgi heritage other than the gene for the short tail are ok to be shown and bred.
It doesn't make any sense or have logic applied to it - but sadly common sense and logic are a dying quality.
They did say re the purity of the breed - but then again they tried to create (& failed) a natural 'cropped ear' look by crossing spitz breeds
with the Boxer...they didn't have a problem with those...but then again it was done by those in the Munich Boxer Club juristiction ;)
Whereas the bobtail wasn't. Plus the fact that they allow the long tailed litter siblings of bobtail parentage to be shown....as they are 'pure
as they don't have the bobtail gene' ..

Would have to ask friends who know and show dogs in Scandanavian countries if the bobtail Boxers are still being shown..