Kris­tel-Marie Ram­nath

An in­crease in aware­ness of an­i­mal wel­fare in Trinidad and To­ba­go is re­sult­ing in few­er own­ers choos­ing to dock (cut off) the tails of their dogs.

Rea­sons for dock­ing the tails of dogs are found through­out his­to­ry: it was be­lieved by the ear­ly Ro­mans that tail dock­ing pre­vent­ed ra­bies but this is un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed.

There was al­so a the­o­ry that pre-dat­ed evo­lu­tion that if tails were cut, off­spring would be born with no tails. This be­lief, known as Lamar­ck’s the­o­ry of ac­quired char­ac­ter­is­tics, per­sist­ed un­til the end of the 18th cen­tu­ry.

Tails were cut off in dogs pitched against each oth­er in fight­ing rings to try to re­duce in­jury to the an­i­mals dur­ing the match.

Var­i­ous tax schemes may al­so have ac­count­ed for the pro­lif­er­a­tion of tail dock­ing. In some ar­eas, dogs used for work were not taxed.

One area of work was hunt­ing so tails were cut to avoid them get­ting tan­gled in brush and un­der­growth. As a docked tail be­came a sym­bol of a work­ing dog that was not sub­ject to tax, lots of pet own­ers would cut off their dogs’ tails to avoid hav­ing to pay tax on the dog, whether or not the dog was used for work. In oth­er ar­eas, farm­ers were taxed ac­cord­ing to the length of their dogs’ tails, so dock­ing was used to re­duce the tax li­a­bil­i­ty. While it was cus­tom­ary for breed stan­dards to re­quire a docked tail in cer­tain breeds such as Rot­tweil­ers, it is now com­mon for docked tails to be op­tion­al.

Sev­er­al wel­fare con­cerns sur­round tail dock­ing. Tails are cut off when pup­pies are just a few days old. The hair on the tail is re­moved first. A clamp is placed on the cut off point, and the tail is sliced off with a scalpel. Al­ter­na­tive­ly, the blood sup­ply to the tail is con­strict­ed with a rub­ber lig­a­ture for a few days un­til the tail falls off. The re­main­ing wound may re­quire su­tures, and the tail is ban­daged.

The dog suf­fers a great deal of pain dur­ing and af­ter this pro­ce­dure, which sev­ers the mus­cles, ten­dons, nerves, car­ti­lage, and bone of the tail.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, no anaes­the­sia is used. Long-term pain is caused by patho­log­i­cal nerve ac­tiv­i­ty as a re­sult of tis­sue dam­age and the de­vel­op­ment of neu­ro­mas. There is ev­i­dence that dock­ing weak­ens the mus­cles in­volved in defe­ca­tion and in main­tain­ing the strength of the pelvic di­aphragm, lead­ing to an in­creased risk of fae­cal in­con­ti­nence, per­ineal her­nia, and uri­nary in­con­ti­nence.

The re­moval of the tail de­prives the dog of an im­por­tant means of ex­press­ing its in­ten­tions and emo­tions and can lead to mis­un­der­stand­ings with both peo­ple and oth­er dogs as com­mu­ni­ca­tion with a tail no longer ex­ists. The pain and dis­tress caused by dock­ing may al­so neg­a­tive­ly af­fect the so­cial­i­sa­tion process in pup­pies. The re­moval of the dog’s tail may re­duce the strength of the dog’s back and com­pro­mise its bal­ance and agili­ty.

Some breeds use their tails as rud­ders when swim­ming. The dog may ex­pe­ri­ence trau­ma and phan­tom or psy­cho­log­i­cal pain for life.

While the Trinidad and To­ba­go Vet­eri­nary As­so­ci­a­tion (TT­VA) has no clear pol­i­cy against the dock­ing of tails; the Roy­al Col­lege of Vet­eri­nary Sur­geons (RCVS), the British Vet­eri­nary As­so­ci­a­tion (BVA), and the British Small An­i­mal Vet­eri­nary As­so­ci­a­tion (BSA­VA) are all op­posed to the tail dock­ing of dogs (ex­cept for the ther­a­peu­tic dock­ing of an in­jured or dis­eased tail).

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the dock­ing of tails for cos­met­ic pur­pos­es is pro­hib­it­ed in all coun­tries that have rat­i­fied the Eu­ro­pean Con­ven­tion for the Pro­tec­tion of Pet An­i­mals.

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