Nip and tuck - the painful cost of breed standards

Legislatures in Pennsylvania and Illinois are considering bills that would reduce or eliminate what animal welfare advocates call mutilations, and what breeders and American Kennel Club (AKC) call “breed standards”. Because dogs are considered by state laws to be property, individual owners may currently cut and shape dogs’ ears (cropping) or amputate part or all of their tails (docking), often without a proper sterile environment or anaesthesia.

Ear cropping and tail docking, according to the AKC, are “acceptable practices integral to defining and preserving breed standards, enhancing good health, and preventing injuries”. Of 158 pure-bred breeds recognised by the AKC, about 50 kennel clubs have “breed standards” that require or strongly suggest tail docking or ear cropping. The AKC claims standards are established by individual clubs - all of which deduct points for dogs that don’t conform to their “standards” - and that the AKC has no restrictions to register or to show a dog.

The Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI), which includes national kennel clubs of 84 nations, forbids cropping and docking of rottweilers and other breeds. The AKC is not a member of the FCI.

A caudectomy (commonly known as docking) usually occurs between one and four days after birth by placing a ligature over the dog’s tail and cutting off the blood supply. The tail falls off within three days. The tail can also be cut off by using clippers or surgical scissors. Among breeds that are commonly docked by breeders and those involved in the showdog industry are airedales, Australian shepherds, boxers, dobermans, mastiffs, poodles, old english sheepdogs, pinschers, pointers, rottweilers, schnauzers, spaniels, terriers, and welsh corgis.

A pinnectomy (commonly known as cropping) requires cutting parts of ears to reshape the structure, usually resulting in ears that are more pointed and which stand up against the head. Among breeds that often have cropped ears are boxers, dobermans, great danes, rottweilers, schnauzers, and terriers.

Persons engaged in illegal dog fighting or the drug industry, especially those who own pit bulls, will often crop and dock their dogs to establish not only a more fierce appearance but also to reduce the possibility that other dogs can use the ears and tails as points of attack. “I have seen some really bad cropping,” says Adam Goldfarb of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). The cropping, usually done by owners with minimal training, often leaves ears “mangled, misshapen, or almost as buds on the head,” says Goldfarb.

Proposed legislation in Pennsylvania would require that only veterinarians would be allowed to dock tails after five days; ears could not be cropped until puppies are at least 12-weeks-old. Breeders may still dock tails when a puppy is no more than five-days-old. The bill was unanimously passed in the House and is currently in the Senate agriculture committee.

Proposed legislation in Illinois would ban all cropping and docking except for medical necessity. That bill is waiting a second reading in the Senate. The Illinois bill, submitted by Sen. Terry Link, majority caucus whip, “has had its struggles” because of the AKC opposition, according to Ron Holmes, communications specialist in the Senate. The bill, says Holmes, “represents humanity versus cosmetics”. The AKC was largely responsible for the defeat of bills in California, New York, and Vermont during the past four years. Because the proposed Pennsylvania legislation still allows docking and cropping, the AKC has been relatively quiet in Pennsylvania, according to Sarah Speed of the Humane Society of the United States. Opposition, she says, is being mounted in the rural areas and by breeders.

Breeders, as well as official policies of AKC and the Council for Docked Breeds (CDB), an international organisation based in England, claim there is no pain when puppies have their tails amputated shortly after birth.

“It is painful,” counters Dr Barbara Hodges, consulting veterinarian for the Humane Society Veterinarian Medical Association (HSVMA). It is not accepted veterinarian practice “that puppies experience less pain than adult dogs,” she says. Amputation “of any body part of any living being will certainly elicit a pain response from the nervous system, even at two or three days,” Hodges explains, noting that a recently-born puppy “may simply not be able to express this pain in the same manner that an older puppy would”.

There is significant pain when ears are cut, shaped, and then bandaged for several months to assure they meet “breed standards.” In veterinarians’ clinics, the surgery is done under general anaesthesia, usually when the dog is between 10 and 14-weeks-old. The ears are taped to a rack to keep the ears firm, and stay bandaged three to six weeks. A second surgery to again reshape the ears that do not conform to breed specifications may also be necessary. The “risk of anaesthesia for a cosmetic procedure makes no sense whatsoever to put an animal at risk for blood loss or infection unless you are achieving some improvement in their health,” says Hodges.

The Australian Veterinarian Association emphasises, “While young animals cannot express pain the same way as adult humans do, anatomical studies indicate that they are superbly capable of feeling pain, and biochemical studies show that they do suffer short- and long-term effects from surgery”. The AVMA policy is that “It is not currently accepted that puppies experience less pain than adults”.