Is there an increased propensity to injury in undocked dogs?
18. The claim that docking prevents tail damage in hunting/gundogs is the main reason given by advocates of continued docking and is presumably why DEFRA is contemplating permitting exceptions by regulation. Yet most docked puppies are kept as family pets and are never used for hunting (although they may be free when walked to roam in very similar terrain as that encountered by gundogs). Furthermore, many breeds of hunting/gundogs do not have docked tails, and the length of the tail in docked breeds varies according to the breed standard. 19. Reliance is placed on two main sources: a) A small number of photographs/case studies of tail-injured dogs. It is interesting to note that the same 15 or so examples are used throughout the world by advocates of docking, and appear to originate with the UK CDB. They include non-UK examples of injury as well as tail injuries in non-gundog breeds and even in breeds that are not customarily docked, including one mongrel. This tends to suggest that th
