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Dog with partially docked tail. Docking or bobbing is the removal of portions of an animal's tail.It should not be confused with cropping, [1] the amputation of ears. Tail docking may be performed cutting the tail with surgical scissors (or a scalpel) or constricting the blood supply to the tail with a rubber ligature for a few days until the tail falls off. [2]
As with other domesticated animals, there is a long history of docking the tails of dogs. It is understood to date at least to Ancient Greece. The most popular reason for docking dog breeds is to prevent injury to working dogs. In hunting dogs, the tail is docked to prevent it from getting cut up as the dog wags its tail in the brush.
Dock jumping, also known as dock diving, is a dog sport in which dogs compete in jumping for distance or height from a dock into a body of water. There are dock jumping events in the United States and other countries such as United Kingdom, [ 1 ] Australia, [ 2 ] Germany, [ 3 ] and Austria.
[citation needed] In the UK, dogs with docked tails have been banned from show for a number of years [citation needed] and the practice is now illegal for native born dogs. [21] Docking is illegal in all European Union states, [22] as well as Australia. [23] The AKC standard for Doberman Pinschers includes a tail docked near the 2nd vertebra. [13]
Cropping the ears of livestock guardian dogs was, and may still be, traditional in some pastoral cultures.The ears of these guardian dogs—such as the Caucasian Shepherd Dog [6] and the Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog—were traditionally cropped to reduce the possibility of wolves or opponent-dogs getting a grip on them.
[8] [9] In England and Wales, docking can only be carried out on dogs where the owners have proved that the dogs will be used as working or shooting dogs. [ 10 ] The breed standard indicates that the males of the breed are on average between 15.5 and 16 inches (39 and 41 cm) at the withers with the females a little smaller, growing to between ...
A line of naturally short-tailed Boxers was developed in the United Kingdom in anticipation of a tail-docking ban there; [9] after several generations of controlled breeding, these dogs were accepted in the Kennel Club (UK) registry in 1998, and today representatives of the bobtail line can be found in many countries.
The Schipperke has no particular health problems. The UK Kennel Club survey puts the median lifespan of the breed at 13 years old, with about 20% living to 15 years or more. Of the 36 deceased dogs in the survey, the oldest dog was 17 + 1 ⁄ 2 years old. [6] There is a known case where a Schipperke lived to be 18 to 19 years old.