Wow! N.S. vets ban cosmetic surgeries on dogs

I'm with the vets on this one :toast ...I think it's cruel the way some animals are butchered in the name of "fashion, style or breed/show standard"... :BH

Me too! I am also against declawing cats, they should ban that next.

About flipping time too!
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v131/…]

My dogs thank them.
I am a founder member of the anti docking league, here.
Ear cropping has been illegal since 1948.
Docking is stupid, but ear cropping is [i]EVIL[/i]!!

RF you have some beautiful babies...complete with ears and tails... :love

Those Dobes are beautiful- good on you :) I have always been against docking and the attitudes I've clashed with on the net- unbelievable. One US corgi breeder told me she would rather risk a puppy dying than have an undocked dog leave her premises.
I don't understand how any decent vet anywhere can put money before animal welfare.

Mixed feelings. I do not crop or dock, nor do or would I own a breed that 'needs' it. :oops: With that being said: I have seen some dobes with ears and tail that sure started to resemble a coonhound IMO. :lol: My goodness, did it ever change the appearance. I have no problem with that. Let owners chose a dog who's natural looks they like? So where do the mixed feelings come from? Possibly from the fact that I personally think that an animal should be able to give birth naturally as well. And that requirement would eliminate another breed or two. And then were does it stop? Where do you draw the line when you talk about animal welfare? :shock: What breeds are we going to toss in the process of making sure all dogs are leading good lives? I despise PETA. Their intentions might have started out as good and nobel but when one thing starts leading to another........ :evil: (sorry for the rant)
If one wants to ban crops and docks though, any national dog registry would be much more equipped to accomplish that. The breeders in NS are going to backyard slaughter or go elsewhere for their job? :cry:

Oh I loathe PETA too....I could go into a whole different rant over them haha.
And yes, I worry about breeders attempting to do it themselves, but I think it's a step in the right direction...

No, we nearly passed a law banning the "unviable" breeds like Pekes (which I love) and Bulldogs, too, it only failed because some moron tacked on Merle colouring, and too many people on the committee(just for once) knew something about the subject they were looking into, so they threw it out!
I really do not think someone should be allowed to tack something onto someone else's Bill like that, it is unfair.
I love Coonhounds, but I have to say there is little actual resemblance. For a start Dobe ears are completely different, Dobes are mediocre hunters, and they are quite a bit smaller, too. So, once you get over the culture shock of docked dogs (my Corgis were not docked either) all the "amputees" look really weird!
I do mean [i]really[/i] weird.
There is absolutely NO justification for docking.
None.
Zilch.
Nada.
The GSP people in Denmark did a full survey of working dogs and shot themselves in the foot with it, as half the dogs with tail injuries caused working cover were docked!!!

Occasionally a dog will damage it's tail, but not often enough to justify docking the whole breed.
At the moment the law only covers non working breeds, there are exemptions for working spaniels and other traditionally docked working breeds, but these dogs cannot then be shown, show dogs have to be undocked.
The puppy rings at Crufts are getting quite interesting!

I don't understand why someone would bring up merle coloring? I have always loved that color, though I think I remember some drama in certain breeds over whether or not it should be there....
And my GSP has a docked tail, but we didn't do it. He was bred to be a field dog, as his litter mates, dam and sire are. He's a bit gunshy and a lot goofy, so he's a pet. I normally hate docked tails, but they left his a bit long because having a white tip to the tail is very desirable, so they made it long enough to get to the end of a spot on his tail.
But my friend had aus. shepherds, and she always docked their tails short (so they wagged their butts), and one time her chocolate lab got bred, and she even docked those puppies tails! I was like..... :shock: why!?

[quote="Krickette"]I don't understand why someone would bring up merle coloring?[/quote]

It can cause deafness, blindness, mental problems and other issues when homozygous.

Incidentally, merle coloring in dogs is caused by a retrotransposon insertion in the gene PMEL17, which is the same gene that is mutated in silver horses.

[quote="rabbitsfizz"]I love Coonhounds, but I have to say there is little actual resemblance. For a start Dobe ears are completely different, Dobes are mediocre hunters, and they are quite a bit smaller, too. So, once you get over the culture shock of docked dogs (my Corgis were not docked either) all the "amputees" look really weird![/quote]

I bet you have not seen some of the backyard bred dobes that I have run into. :oops: I have seen dobes with ears that would have rivaled a coonhound. Agreed that undocked/cropped takes getting used to, that's all, but it still is a world of difference in appearance. Zeus and Apollo will not look so scary anymore to many a burglar. I like natural dogs myself and by far prefer to read a tail vs a stump.

[quote="horsegen"]Incidentally, merle coloring in dogs is caused by a retrotransposon insertion in the gene PMEL17, which is the same gene that is mutated in silver horses.[/quote]

I found this article:
http://www.pnas.org/content/103/5/1376…" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I did not think that all merles had problems? But that is how I interpreted the article? :o

[quote="rabbitsfizz"]About flipping time too!
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v131/…]

My dogs thank them.
I am a founder member of the anti docking league, here.
Ear cropping has been illegal since 1948.
Docking is stupid, but ear cropping is [i]EVIL[/i]!![/quote]

To me they look very normal with their tails and ears!! I get a shock when I see an american one with those freaky ears!!

It's good the vets are starting to say, no more. But yeh until the dog registries ok it, and allow non cut animals to win in shows etc.. it's going to keep going, or it becomes more national wide :(

Although I must say after they banned tail docking here (around 2003 I think), initially people would 'pretend' the dog got it's tail run over or something to get it docked, but it seemed very quickly that the stigma of having a docked tail was pretty negative. So for the most part it seems normal to most folks I think to have non docked tails on dogs now. Or maybe that's just the circles I'm in!

I doubt burglars are really that bothered about how pointy a dog's ears are! More about how pointy their teeth are :D

My point constantly! I sold a puppy to go as a security dog at Hatfield House (which is just up the road) The man was the general house keeper for the family , Lord and Lady Salisbury, that owned the place. Seriously HUGE Elizabethan house, seriously valuable stuff.
I told him that my pups were not docked and when he had stopped laughing he said he preferred them with tails as it allowed him to see what they were thinking and, if he had cause to set the dog on an intruder he doubted very much that the man would stand there and say he wasn't scared as the dog had a tail!!
He took a Brown, too, as he said it would not be scary to visitors but, at night all dogs, especially ones with big pointy teeth, are Black!

It was my understanding that Merle X Merle's puppies , when H/Z were born without eyes, they are born white anyway, so would have serious defects, and I do know that Merle in h/Z can be deaf...it seems to be the same as Splash, when the white extends over the ears and inside them.
I have known a number of Blue Merle's with defective eye sight and hearing.
I had a whole litter of Blues that checked out A1, but I do think I was lucky! They were Tri X Blue Merle, though, not Merle to Merle, I would never do that.
I am not au fait with dog colours, but the Tri had a Merle sire, is it Dominant or recessive??

My Sheltie is heterozygous merle and has fine vision and hearing, but I've seen the homozygous ones with either no eyes or tiny, useless eyes. There is occasionally one with some vision and hearing but I don't know if they are ever totally normal.

wow. I know just tons of people around here breed their Aus Shepards, and they are always merle to merle! I didn't know that it could be a problem, I'd never seen any with any defects.

Then they are quietly culling the ones with problems. Statistically, 25% will be homozygous.

Merle is dominant. MM = double merle, Mm = merle, mm = no merle.
The problem with breeding merle to merle is a lot like splash, it's just that if there is no color around the ears then they will have hearing problems. Same with the eye sight. Of course they can be born without eyes and severly mutated pupils/eyes as well, but I'm pretty sure it has to do with the color placement and lack of pigmentation. (http://www.lethalwhites.com/eyes.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)
However, you could get the same effects too if you breed a loud black and white pinto dog (no merle) to another loud black and white pinto dog (no merle) and just get tons of white! I'm pretty sure the reason Dalmations get the hearing tests is because there is a chance of the ears not being colored right (don't quote me on this part, but this is what makes sense). So I guess you could luck out and get correct white placement and not have any problems, but it is stupid, irresponsible, and not worth it at all.

And Rabbit, I think the reason for h/Z merle being deaf was probably and underlying disease or there was a lack of pigmentation that you couldn't see. Just like Danger's horse. Merle can also hide in colors like ee red/gold (http://www.alderaan-bordercollies.com/f…" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) so you have to watch what you breed those to. It can also be suppressed and go unnotice (it's there, like frame in some horses, but you can hardly see the pattern) on a solid dog. Those are cryptic merles which are rare. Not all merles are born all white anyways, many are not.

[quote="horsegen"]Incidentally, merle coloring in dogs is caused by a retrotransposon insertion in the gene PMEL17, which is the same gene that is mutated in silver horses.[/quote]

So cool. That could help explain some of the eye development problems seen in silvers.

Also, tail docking (at least cosmetic) and ear cropping is not taught in vet school anymore. Declawing is only taught if you specifically request it while on one of the 4th year rotations.

Very good to know!

BTW why did you want to know how far I am from OSU? I'm dying of curiosity!

Oh, I am going to be doing a 2 week rotation on Equine lameness at OSU for my last two weeks of vet school. I was hoping that you would be close enough to Corvallis that I could borrow a couch and not have to bunk with a stranger.

oh bummer, that's kind of a drive. You could totally borrow a couch here anytime if you need though. You'd love to do a rotation with Columbia or Willamette, right? 8-)

[quote="Dogrose"]I doubt burglars are really that bothered about how pointy a dog's ears are! More about how pointy their teeth are :D[/quote]

Or even how loud their bark is. (regardless of the dogs size, alerting the owner is almost the biggest threat) But if not for 'looks' no breed would ever have been cropped. I think crops (and docks?) may, in hindsight, have been justified by tales of injuries, but I am not really buying that.
Truth is, the image of a cropped dobe, dane, dogo, pit or whathaveyou is infinately different than a natural one. Regardless of the fact that the outside of the dog does not do the job, but the contents does.

[quote="Sara"]oh bummer, that's kind of a drive. You could totally borrow a couch here anytime if you need though. You'd love to do a rotation with Columbia or Willamette, right? 8-)[/quote]
I'd love it if they offered me an internship :D I need something that pays.

I have seen a number (at least three) of collies that are, to my mind "solid Merles". A colleague bred them. They came out Blue and Brown, but if he got a Black and white it was a deep Black, the Browns and the Blues were both "misty".

[quote="vneerland"][quote="Dogrose"]I doubt burglars are really that bothered about how pointy a dog's ears are! More about how pointy their teeth are :D[/quote]

Or even how loud their bark is. [/quote]
I'm more scared of silent dogs tbh. I had a pit bull intrude on my place and kill a cat once, next thing I know Webster (the huge Pyrenees mix) is ripping the dog to shreds without a sound. :shock: He's so gentle with us and our animals that was truely frightening to see. I've heard that with other dogs of that breed too, when they feel their charge is threatened they go dead silent.
The one with the scariest bark was Bubba (rotti/sheppard) it was closer to a roar than anything but he didn't really mean to be scary. This big black bear looking beast would go running at visitors with this horrible sound but all waggly happy like "hi!!!" and send them running. :lol:
Basically Bubba was an alarm and Webster is all business. Without Bubba now at least we have Mr "Almostrunoverdog"(Jigsaw) as he was dubbed by the last visitor. He has some kind of short circuit when it comes to anything with wheels so we hear about it before they're even in the driveway. (I swear he chases the [i]wheelbarrow[/i] :roll: )

[quote="TwinCreeksFarm"]! I'm pretty sure the reason Dalmations get the hearing tests is because there is a chance of the ears not being colored right (don't quote me on this part, but this is what makes sense). So I guess you could luck out and get correct white placement and not have any problems, but it is stupid, irresponsible, and not worth it at all.[/quote]

I think that's right, Dal's with patches on the head are less likely to be deaf. I've had two normal ones that weren't. (one was SO not deaf. he could understand complete sentences and we had to change words and phrases every few months of stuff we didn't want him to hear)