"Dear supporter,

As you probably know by now, the Animal Welfare Act 2006 has passed through both the House of Lords and the House of Commons and becomes law on 6 April 2007. Tail docking is subject to further regulations which have yet to be drafted and consulted on, before the section on docking is enacted. Final restrictions on tail docking, may or may not come into effect on the same date.

As usual, we will keep you up to date at http://www.cdb.org/

In conjunction with Our Dogs we have commissioned a survey to take into account the current views of dog breeders in the hope that the results might still influence the outcome. At the very least, it should generate further media interest IF sufficient responses are forthcoming.

We would ask you to kindly complete this survey and make your voice heard. It is totally confidential and does not ask for your personal details, so you remain anonymous.

We do hope you take the time to help us by completing this survey and please encourage as many of your friends as possible to do the same.

The survey will be closed before Christmas, so please do not delay taking part.

Please complete the survey which can be found at http://www.dockingsurvey.org/

Thank you in anticipation,

Peter Squires"

I can't answer one of the questions on the survey as it asks if you have bred a litter in the past 24 months how the tails were docked, there's no box if you didn't dock them

I did not give any voting "choices" that fitted the reply I would have liked to have given which would reflect the fact that no matter how strongly I felt about this subject I would never choice to vote for a party solely on one issue :rolleyes:  Anyhoo, I filled it in leaving out that question :)

> I filled it in leaving out that question 

That's exactly the question I ended up leaving out, for exactly the same reason ;)

That's the problem with surveys. 

Sharon I think any questions that are either not applicable or you do not want to answer can be left blank :-)

I tried skipping past the question and I get the following message come up '1 or more questions were not answered, please validate and return'

Have to say the available answers seem a bit loaded to me. 

Debs

It is difficult to design a good questionnaire that gives objective results because usually the person that designs it has their own subjective views.  A way of avoiding that would be to have the questionnaire designed professionally.  Unfortunately this questionnaire does seem a bit amateurish and whilst it endeavours to leave out questions that are purely subjective the political question does throw a spanner in the works.  At the end I was left wondering what value the stats will hold especially as there are not very many questions. Disappointing really.

As it has been drawn I don't think it would have any value at all if presented to the Government, for instance.  Just an exercise in being seen to be doing something I suppose :rolleyes:

I felt they were more for the pro docking brigade and also had trouble about the voting for which party question (can't see how that would be relevant) but I filled it in and left the questions that I couldnt answer.

well we have filed it in but didnt like the fact that there was no option for "will you carry on docking regardless":rolleyes:

I thought there was an option for that Sam ?  Towards the end saying something about would you carry on and illegally dock yourself or get someone else to do it.  Or words to that effect anyway.

horse door and bolted come to mind

There was an option like that. I found it hard to fill in as someone who has an undocked breed but has an opinion on docking.

I filled it in even though my breed is very rarely docked - well, more tipped.  It's easy to say it's a futile exercise on a forum but I wonder how many of you have actually done something yourselves to keep the freedom of choice to dock?   

I expect most of us have subscribed to CDB, acting as an individual is not terribly effective.  I think a survey by a leading dog paper need not have been futile but as it is written I doubt it would get a second look from any ministry that the results might be handed to when they read how the points have been covered.  It seems to me it may be more geared as a marketing exercise to enable the paper to stay in line with the people it is selling papers to.

Better to be seen to be doing something than nothing at all.

At least this pig headed Govt. will know that not everyone is going to toe the line with their rushed in laws.    

The paper does not say it plans to do anything at all only that they want to understand what we are thinking.

By taking the survey, they are doing something even if they are just collating the information for themselves.  At least it will give them some responses to work out what to do next, if anything at all.

Fair enough :)  I've filled it in anyway.

Well I've filled it in even though I do agree that some of the questions should have been worded differently.  I've been on the various protests, even managed to get on the telly and in the papers with my weimars, I've written to my MP and MSP and I've collected signatures on the petition organised by SKC.  I've tried my hardest to see both sides of the arguments and I've tried to educate people wherever possible.  I am fairly certain my efforts will fall flat on their face but at least I can say I've tried and done my part.  This is not directed at anyone here because I don't know you all well enough but IMO there are too many people preferring to sit on their backsides watching Eastenders instead of taking a more active roll in this fight :rolleyes: ;-)

It seems we have all filled it in, that doesn't mean we cannot regret that it was not worded in a way that might have proved a more useful tool in that fight.

>The paper does not say it plans to do anything at all only that they want to understand what we are thinking.

To understand what we are thinking they need to qualify before they quantify.  IMO they have plenty of information from pro-docking and anti-docking owners to get a good idea of people's thoughts.  The questionnaire doesn't seem to reflect the opinions of owners in general just breeders.  Obviously, breeders of docked breeds are going to be biased and that alone will devalue the overall results.  Why aren't there questions directed at pet owners who have no interest in showing or breeding their dogs?  Surely these opinions would carry weight considering these owners have no vested interested in docking?  Why aren't there questions investigating where anti-docking opinions come from i.e. media driven via anti-docking organisations as opposed to years of personal experience?

I really don't see what the questionnaire hopes to show

but IMO there are too many people preferring to sit on their backsides watching Eastenders instead of taking a more active roll in this fight  

..... maybe they simply do not want to fight the docking ban at all .... not all dog owners or breeders agree with docking !

Yvonne

Yvonne I was in no way suggesting that everyone agree's with docking !  And I am not about to get into a debate over it :rolleyes:  I thought it would have been fairly obvious, but obviously it wasn't, that I was indeed referring to those who are pro docking but can't be bothered to play their part in trying to keep the status quo or at the very least have an exemption for working dogs.

It was good of you to highlight the survey and I agree that this shouldn't end up a debate on the pros and cons of docking.  As a supporter of docking, though, I am a bit disappointed with the survey content that was all. I hope that when the results are in they are able to use them to help design a bigger and more informative questionnaire. As it is the survey appears to be just paying lip service.

Evaluating the value of this survey differently to you does not mean that people can't be bothered to play their part.  Thank you for bringing it to our attention, it seems most people have had a go at filling it in, but please do not berate us for pointing out any inadequacies in it that we can see may prove a hindrance to achieving the ends we desire.

Isobel, I am berating no one !  I said in my posting above that I too felt that some of the questions could have been worded differently.

I only wanted to bring the survey to people's attentions nothing more and nothing less.

That's OK then.  I don't like Eastenders anyway :)

LOL.  Me neither ;-)

But then not all dog breeders or owners disagree that the DDA was a bad thing too!   But there are people it did effect through no fault of their own.

If it's a cause that effects you or you feel strongly about it, then you have the choice to participate in any action against a change in law.  No-one is holding a gun to anyone's head to fill in the survey, Claire merely put the link up so that it gave the opportunity  for people like me who hadn't seen it, to be aware of it.

In the main, the Gov were very clever in dividing the pro dockers by bringing in the exemption for working dogs, especially in that they caused confusion so folk thought of working breeds rather than dogs that worked.

I have to say I've never thought of it as working breeds and only ever thought of it was dogs that worked. If people thought otherwise they weren't really paying attention!