All very true. My cocker boys have docked tails, they love to dash for the undergrowth and the spikier the better. I dread to think what they would be like of they had there full tails with full feathering on it - I'd never get them out and I could see them getting damage to them.

Personally I have no objections to docking as long as it is done correctly. As for I being cosmetic - well I don't know enough to be able to comment either way. I think my boys look better with a docked tail, but I am resigned to the fact that we are likely to lose the ability to have them docked and as such I can see the whole type changing. I just hope that if it does come in, then the way to show also changes so that the tail is not "hidden" as you often see on the continent and that the tail and it's furnishings are clearly measures against the standard.

I must admit to being curious as to how it has gone in Europe - are there more tail injuries in the working dogs now they can't dock
In my mind, and I know legisaltion does not work like this, there are far more important things we should be tackling like the piercing of very young childrens ears, circumcision of very young boys and girls etc etc. Some cosmetic, some religious but still mutilation of a living being without that beings consent. My two penn'orth that'll likely give rise to some objections. JMHO

Pam n the boys

Dogs aren't docked in Holland. But shooting is illegal there too. Hence the large number of Dutch absentee landlords on shooting estates in Scotland.

Shooting in Holland is not illegal, but it is stringently controlled :-) The results of their recent docking ban won't really be seen for some months yet, although reports of dogs with tail damage are filtering through already.

Sorry. Someone had told me it was, but Al told me otherwise yesterday! His Dutch friend says that whilst it's not illegal it is so expensive that only the ultra rich can afford to do it.

Hi Leigh, don't you think we try too hard to justify docking? Put some IW people together, and you'll soon find a discussion about the merits of curlers vs artifical skin to heal split tails. On the other hand, two first class coursing dogs I knew had part (in one case most) of their tail missing. In one case the tail was lost in an accident, but in the other it was serially amputated because of a split that wouldn't heal and a stump that kept getting infected as the dog merrily wagged on. Docked dogs have been around for a long time, and no one has managed to show that they have poor balance or fail to communicate. Anyone who has seen docking competently performed at the correct age knows that the pups go right back to feeding or sleeping as soon as they are released. Unless they are very good actors the pups suffer no more (and give the relative development of the periperhal nervous system, probably less) than little boys that are circumsised. The circumsised little boy - and especially his future wife - gain some future health benefits from the procedure, as does the docked puppy, although both operations carry a very small risk of complications.

All that would suggest to me that: (a) tail injuries are common in some customarily undocked breeds; (b) no significant loss of function occurs if the tail is removed, even in customarily undocked breeds; (c) in reality and experience docking does not cause the docked dog communication problems, although theory might suggest it should; (d) the pain caused by docking is minimal or nil, and, as with circumcision, may be balanced against future phrophylactic benefits. So why not just say that some people prefer some breeds to be docked for aesthetic or other reasons, and leave it at that? And why can't those who don't like docking just live and let live?

The tendency to equate 'I don't like' with 'we must ban' is a dangerous one imo. Or as Brian Walden said in the article I linked in the hunting thread: "... a love of liberty is no longer a popular cause. It is too straightforward to appeal to the modern mind ..... Liberty is the doctrine that urges society to leave people alone to do as they wish, unless there is some truly overwhelming reason for stopping them."

Hi Sharon, just a quick reply because I'm off to work my docked dog today :D I gave up trying to justify why my dogs are docked a long time ago. I KNOW why my dogs are docked and if other people think that they know better, then they are entitled to their opinion.What I resent is people and governments,telling me that I don't know what I am talking about, when they have no experience of tail damage and when they have never worked a dog in the pursuit that I and many others choose.

When replying to Fran, I could tell by what she wrote, that although I gave her cast iron facts, she will not be swayed. Thats fine by me :-) But, she did ask and she did get a reply and that is what the forum is here for, to educate :-) I would hope that maybe there are one or two other people reading this, that had heard the 'greyhound' argument put forward before, but they themselves had not put it into perspective. I would hope that now they might think a little bit deeper about the issue themselves.

Right, I am off to see just how much hound my bracco has in him :rolleyes: If you see a bracco passing your house, in full flight after a hare, trip him up for me please, or I might never get the bugga back!