Many breeds of dogs are rarely seen without a docked tail. To understand why docking a dogs tail became acceptable, one must understand why the practice started in the first place.

For many dogs, such as the Cocker Spaniel, a docked tail as a puppy was prudent to the life and health of the dog. Cocker Spaniels are a sport dog and in the past were used to retrieve or flush birds or other small prey. During this activity, many adult Cocker Spaniels would injur their tail while running in thick brush, weeds and brambles. The tail became infected and the dog suffered great pain and even sometimes died.

Docking the dogs tail as a puppy, when the majority of the tail is mostly cartilege, became an accepted practice and is no worse than having an ear pierced. As a dog gets older, the tail becomes bone. So, waiting until the dog was older and injured to remove a portion of the tail, meant that the dog had to undergo major surgery. Thus risk of infection and death increased with the age of the dog.

Other breeds of dogs, suffered the same types of tail injuries due to size, structure and hair cover of the tail. These dogs commonly had their tails docked as well. Other dogs, such as the Laborador Retriever, have a thick tail with much more hair protecting it and have a much less chance of injuring their tail. It isn’t common practice to dock the tails of these dogs.

The same reasoning can be applied today, althoughmany people commonly have their puppies tail docked because of looks. It issuperior to dock a puppies tail, who may fall into the category of likely tail injury risk, than to wait until the injury occurs. The same dogs who are only companions today, still play in the same manner that they hunted, flushed or retrieved in the past. The unlucky pet can find themselves with a tail injury quite easily.

When there are health concerns to consider, docking a puppies tail isn’t cruel. It is prudent. It is no more cruel to dock a puppies tail than having that same puppy spade or neutered to avoid the health risks of leaving them intact and to avoid over-population.

However, docking a puppies tail isn’t the same as cropping a dogs ears. Ear cropping became popular in breeds of dogs that were inhumanely used in dog fighting. Most associations and many locations have banned ear cropping, in order to disuade irresponsible owners of some breeds from engaging in these inhumane activities. Ear cropping was and unfortunately is used to prevent a dog in the fight from grasping and ripping the opponent’s ear. Ear cropping serves no purpose in today’s society.

A dog’s ear does not turn to bone as he ages. It is cartilege. The risk of infection is not great if the dog injures his ear at any age. A dog does not likely have to have major surgery if they injur their ear flap.

Docking a dog’s tail at an early age is not cruel.