No Tail, No Reason

Making a bee-line for the back of the pet store, I spotted the puppies sleeping in their newspaper-strewn areas, with litters separated by small glass walls. When I saw one particularly cute chocolate-brown ball of fur, I asked to hold him, and instantly fell in love with a puppy who was tiny, cuddly, and fit in one hand. Hogan is a cockapoo, one of today’s designer breeds, with a tiny body that makes him very portable and easy to manage. On his first night home, when a harmless blueberry dropped to the floor in the kitchen, he instantly jumped and scampered away. While time improved his social skills, his timidity would prevent him from fending for himself if he were ever lost.

My family and I didn’t instantly notice the missing tail, the fragility of his stature and his vulnerability. We just played and cuddled and became best friends with him, enjoying the fact that he fit nicely on our laps. Later, my brothers and I joked about his stump of a tail, but with time it became a real concern. The vet determined that his tail was cropped too short, and that the procedure which removed it would have been not only painful, but also damaging. She explained that some breeders of small dogs remove the tail using toenail clippers or scissors, and that the unnecessary surgery was done “to maintain an unnecessary breed-appearance standard.” While the cruelty behind his missing tail was upsetting, it brought to light an important injustice.

Our need to create the perfect pet causes us to disregard an animal’s inherent qualities and instincts, and instead we often view them as possessions—as almost toy-like, rather than spirited, living animals. In order to achieve a playful and obedient pet like Hogan, breeders favour traits in dogs that will make them less aggressive. As Ádám Miklósi said in his book, Dog Behaviour, Evolution, and Cognition, “an ideal dog is small and looks childish with a short nose and large eyes. It is docile and tame and shows a tendency for submission.” These genetic selections facilitate the integration of domesticated dogs into human families, but also inhibit their ability to survive independently. Additionally, these selected traits can pose health risks to dogs, as an unusual eye size can cause eye deterioration, and a flat face can restrict breathing.

Domesticated dogs that do not fulfill breeder expectations may undergo surgeries that also cause health problems. An article published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association explained that dogs and cats are put through unnecessary surgeries, due to traditions born of ignorance, rather than facts. For example, the tails and ears of hunting or fighting dogs were cropped to reduce their risk of infection, a process known as “tail docking”, as in some cases people thought removing the tails would reduce the risk of rabies. Since dog fighting is both illegal and cruel, and since an animal’s risk of rabies depends upon its exposure to other infected animals, the cropping of tails has no real purpose. Instead, these surgeries have increased the health risks of dogs and hampered their ability to communicate by altering their ears and tails.

Although domesticated dogs living with humans benefit from shelter, food, and water provisions, their health problems may outweigh the benefits. In order to alleviate genetic health problems, humans should treat animals better by doing away with the outdated practice of needless surgeries. Likewise, those adopting new pets should opt out of any unnecessary procedures that could threaten an animal’s welfare.