#ear cropping

[stinkybrowndogs]

The black and tan pair of the century for @khayr I love when you have 2 dogs who are The Same but one is baby. 🖤🧡🖤

[but-the-scene-is-grey]

[killergothfromouterspace]

My elf ears are healing nicely and I feel a lot better. 🖤

(I had to down size my lobes a ton but it’s p easy for me to restretch)

[dogbook-is-hell]

Found this on Facebook. The “this is not a thing” cracked me up for some reason.

[ask-a-vetblr]

Ear cropping is only illegal in my state if it was done by anyone except a vet, but is there any way to tell? My neighbor got his pincher puppy's ears cropped and, while the dog seems ok and recovering well, I still feel so bad every time I see it.

gettingvetted here.

Unfortunately not. You can pretty well assume that if it's a hack job, it was done by a non-vet. That said, vets are not taught ear cropping methods in school anymore so finding one that knows how to do it (and is willing to do such an unethical thing) is getting harder and harder (and this is a good thing!)

[unpopulark9opinions]

The amount of people i’m seeing lately bash people for cropping or docking their dogs and calling it abuse...honestly find something better to do. Get mad at actual abuse that harms a dogs quality of life. Reshaping external tissue on the ear doesn’t harm their quality of life, and in some cases it can improve it. Get angry at actual abusers, not people who care about their animals.

[yourwakingnightmares]

So my friend in Australia recently sent me pictures of his dogs, and it took me a minute to place what breed they were.

But when I messaged him back, I said, “Wow! That’s so cool! Dobermans with their ears and tails! That’s really awesome.”

And he hit me back with, “Yeah... It’s illegal here. Unless you get a vet to sign off saying they need it for medical reason, you can’t clip tails or ears.”

Imagine living in a place where it’s illegal to start lopping pieces off your animal because you think it looks better! Where you don’t get to amputate pieces of your dog for cosmetic reasons!

Is there a reason why we can’t have this law... Oh, I dunno... everywhere?  

[vet-and-wild]

I know your thoughts on declawing (and 100% agree), but I’m wondering how you feel about ear dropping, tail docking and dewclaw removal? (Sorry if you’ve been asked this before)

Personally I feel tail docking is horrendous for dogs because, like declaw, it’s a completely cosmetic amputation. I haven’t seen anything saying it causes as many chronic issues that declawing does but it can’t be good long term. Same with ear cropping; not an amputation but I want to say I’ve seen it can cause long term problems like predispositions to otitis externa, etc. Plus, I’m sorry, but your dog looks fucking stupid and sad with no tail and no ears. Not ferocious or scary; just sad.

I’m cool with dewclaw removal if the dewclaw in question is just a vestigial nub with a nail that isn’t really attached to anything and has a tendency to get caught on things. I don’t agree with any cosmetic procedures on animals but dewclaw removal is by far the least terrible to me personally

I’m not a fan of docking, cropping, or debarking. Front dewclaw removal is pretty unnecessary but I would agree that if I had to rank them, that’s probably the least terrible. Back dewclaws are kind of just hanging there and not a big deal to remove, although I don’t necessarily go out of my way to do it unless they’re causing a problem. Even if anesthesia and surgery is quite safe, it’s still not 0 risk. So if we’re going to be performing any procedures or putting them under anesthesia where they could die, have acute/chronic pain, and/or infection, there better be a good reason. Ears and tails are also really important for communication, and I don’t think we really have a full understanding of what removing them does to canine communication. Because someone always brings up desexing, it’s not in the same boat. There are absolutely pros and cons to desexing, but it really isn’t comparable to other elective procedures. Desexing has benefits for population control and cancer rates, so it’s not just an aesthetic/convenience thing.

Plus I agree; I think it’s ugly. Some people will argue that docking prevents happy tail, and that ear cropping prevents ear infections (it doesn’t), and that dewclaw removal prevents injury secondary to a dew getting stuck on something. That’s the equivalent of saying we should remove pinky toes to prevent stubbing our toes on things. It’s just not serious enough or common enough to justify. If a tail, dewclaw, or even part of an ear needs to be removed for medical reasons, that’s an amputation, not an elective procedure. Just like how removing a cat’s digit because it has cancer is not the same as a declaw. The other big excuse is that it protects “working” dogs. First off, a large portion of dogs that get labeled as working dogs aren’t really working dogs, they’re sport dogs. If a dog needs to be caused potential pain and permanent physical alteration to participate in a sport for fun or glory, then maybe we should think about changing the rules (*cough* conformation). For actual working dogs, it’s not necessarily even a worldwide thing to crop/dock. Australian pig hunting dogs are not cropped and docked, because that is illegal.

Even in the US, coon hunting dogs that are running through the woods at night don’t have cropped ears or docked tails. And I do actually know a coonhound that had her ear torn by a raccoon. She just has a split at the end of her ear, it has 0 effect on her day to day.

Even livestock guardian dogs often do not have their ears cropped.

And honestly, if the argument is “well maybe they might have their ears torn by a wolf!” we’re getting way too much into the “what if” game. They might also get a horrific infection from cropping! So playing that game for animals that are more than likely not even going to be serious working dogs in the US is just stupid. Guarding breeds also often have cropped ears in their standard. Again, the vast majority of these dogs are not working dogs. What great Danes do you know that are guarding estates? Or mastiffs patrolling junkyards? It’s just not actually common, despite how often the argument of “what about working dogs!” is used. I have no problem with working dogs being used for a purpose, but again, if we have to physically, permanently, and potentially painfully alter them to do a job, we need to rethink if we should still be having them do that job. Animal welfare can’t be shoved aside even for dogs that truly are working 24/7. So when I hear about show/sport breeders arguing that their breed needs to have ears cropped and tails dock for their breed to fulfill their “purpose”, I get a little salty. Your dog doesn’t need cropped ears for an agility or weight pull title.

I’ve also seen the argument that “if vets don’t do it then people will do it at home!” and that’s so stupid to me because a. people already do it at home and b. if it’s illegal, what kind of messed up person is going to cut their own dog’s ears/tail/dews off? Probably not the kind of person that’s gong to pay for proper aseptic technique and pain control now. It’s all just a bunch of dumb excuses to justify physically altering a dog’s appearance for aesthetic and I’m not on board with that.