[Julie W]

It's not just the fact that cropped ears are upright, it's about the shape of the ear. You simply cannot duplicate a good crop with a natural ear, standing or not. And as pretty much everyone agrees, a natural ear is always better than a bad crop.

 

[covenant]

It's not just the fact that cropped ears are upright, it's about the shape of the ear. You simply cannot duplicate a good crop with a natural ear, standing or not. And as pretty much everyone agrees, a natural ear is always better than a bad crop.

Accepted, but its a matter of putting a pup through the cropping process or having this atribute naturally.

I suspect that given a few more years with the speed that genetic science is developing, it will be possible to modify the genes in dobes to produce the desired characterisics without the guesswork and time it takes to produce the same result in a natural controlled manner.

Beautiful pics btw Julie, I adore the elegance of the American dobermanns, and your pup has it by the bocketload.

 

[Murreydobe]

I note that thete are breeds such as the miniture pincher and manchester terrier with naturally erect ears and it may be possible to bred this characteristic in using suitable candidates.

My understanding is there were attempts to do just that early in the history of the breed but without any success.

Another thing that has to be considered about using another breed for this purpose is you could be bringing in health problems that never existed in this breed before. Unfortunately, you don't get to select the traits you want with breeding, you get the entire package..and there could be extremely negative ramifications to that.

 

[Murreydobe]

of course all the top breeders will abide by the law so they can carry on showing and all the byb's will profit because they will carry on docking regardless!!!

I think you'll see a lot of long term breeders that stop breeding completely, or switch to other breeds. That seems to be what's happened in other countries when anti cropping/docking laws have gone into effect-along with registrations decreasing for the breeds affected.

I'm on an email list about showing dogs (inclusive of all breeds), there's a sporting dog breeder from the UK on there. Her comments have been in the future, she'll be importing dogs from Canada or the US so she can own docked dogs-knowing that she'll never be able to show them or breed them, because she WONT breed if she can't dock the puppies. I don't think she'll be alone.

It certainly isn't going to benefit the breeds in the big picture for experienced breeders to bow out, but I certainly can't blame anyone who refuses to play in that sandbox anymore.

I think it's almost inevitable that eventually we'll be unable to crop/dock in this country..all we can do is delay it as long as possible. Personally, I'm glad I'm at a later point in life, where there just won't be that many more dobermans in the future for me..while I *might* be able to learn to live with drop ears, I really, really don't think I could look at those tails on a daily basis.

 

[alwayshadpets]

True, Icannot see the beauty in an undocked dobermann as the tail just doesn't look right, but playing the devils advocate, an uncropped dobi doesn't seem to bother me but then in the UK we don't know any difference. THe cropped ears do give the dobi an added elegance.

It is a shame that no serious breeding programme took place to breed in desired characteristics like the work carried out by a Stynmere kennels
http://www.steynmere.com/BOBTAILS.html so it can be done.

I`m sorry but those tails don`t look right. Some look like a cotton ball were pasted on or some look deformed. I would take a tail any day over the ones in these pics.

 

[Murreydobe]

I`m sorry but those tails don`t look right. Some look like a cotton ball were pasted on or some look deformed.

I thought some of them looked pretty weird, too. One of the problems is you can get kinks in natural bob tails..it's not all smooth sailing just because the tail is naturally short.

 

[covenant]

I think you'll see a lot of long term breeders that stop breeding completely, or switch to other breeds. That seems to be what's happened in other countries when anti cropping/docking laws have gone into effect-along with registrations decreasing for the breeds affected.

QUOTE]
Like many things, there is a knee jerk reaction from those who have little experience of the subject matter, but who feel that they know best and want to impose their sensibilities on the general population. What is clear is that many established kennels built up over many years will stop breeding and the loss to the breed of these breeding lines will be high.

Various animals are docked, sheep for example need to have their tails prevent maggot infestation from the dirt build up around the wool arounnd the tails during the hot summer months but these are practicalities, I do admit to feeling some disquiet at the thought that an animal should be mutilated (read surgically altered) in order that it needs to meet my idea of what the aesthetics of an animal should be.