Animal Insting

Today I am going to write about an icky, horrible subject called ear cropping.  I do not think people should do this mean and cruel thing to dogs, but they do.  Which is why I decided to write about it.  And I also don't think people should chop off their dogs' tails, so I will write about that tomorrow.

Anyway, as usual, I did some in-depth research, and I found out how dogs' ears are cropped and why people do it.  So first I will tell you about the things I learned, and then I will tell you my opinion, which is, of course, the correct one.

Puppies have to have their ears cropped when they are pretty young, like between 9 and 12 weeks old.  The puppy has to go to the vet's office and be sedated.  Then the vet cuts the ear from the tip to the head, so there is just this pointy sort of shape left.  Ears have lots of blood in them, so they can bleed a whole bunch.  But the vet sews the ear up so that it will stop bleeding, and then some kind of funny-looking thing is put on the dog's head to keep the ears standing up.  This might be an aluminum rack or it might be a paper cup, but whatever it is, it is sure to look weird.  And also the puppy probably won't like wearing it.

It's very hard to get the ears to heal up the way they are supposed to and not get scarred or infected or floppy.  The ears might be totally healed up in 6 or 8 weeks, or they might not be done healing for 6 months or even longer.  This seems like a really long time to have your ears be all painful and taped up and everything, but some people think it is worth it to put their dogs through this.

The breeds that mostly get their ears cropped are Schnauzers, Boxers, Great Danes, Dobermans, American Staffordshire Terriers, Pit Bulls, Miniature Pinschers, Manchester Terriers, Bouvier des Flanders, and Affenpinschers.  If any dogs from these breeds are show dogs, they almost always get their ears cropped.  Most of the breed standards also allow dogs with uncropped ears in the ring, but judges seem to like cropped ears better because that is what they are used to seeing.

In 2008, there were 88,770 purebred dogs registered with the AKC who were from breeds that usually have their ears cropped.  And sometimes people crop the ears of mixed breed dogs, so that makes the number bigger.

So how did people get started cutting part of their dogs' ears off?  Well, it seems to be something that the Germans did many centuries ago with the dogs they used in the military because they wanted them to look fierce.  The breeds that got mutilated like this were mostly Great Danes, Boxers, Dobermans, and Schnauzers.

Another reason that people cropped their dogs' ears was because a long, long time ago, when people did a lot of dog fighting and bull baiting, they thought it was better for the dogs to get their ears mostly cut off when they were young instead of having ears that could get hurt really bad during a fight.

Nowadays it is illegal in many countries to crop dogs' ears.  Here's a list of some of these countries:  Austria, Germany, the UK, Norway, Sweden, Israel, Singapore, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.  But it is not illegal to do this to dogs in America.

Anyway, like I told you before, I think it is a very bad idea to amputate dogs' ears because it is very painful for the dog, and there is no good reason for it, as far as I can see.  Lots of people agree with me, and they are trying to get laws made against ear cropping and tail docking in the US, but so far they haven't got it done.  Here's what the American Veterinarian Medical Association said in 2008:

"The AVMA opposes ear cropping and tail docking of dogs when done solely for cosmetic purposes.  The AVMA encourages the elimination of ear cropping and tail docking from breed standards."

But even though the veterinarians' organization has this big, fancy statement, there are still vets who do ear cropping because it is not really illegal.

Anyway, that's all I have to say on this yucky subject.  Well, except that I'm really glad that I'm a basenji and that I already have lovely, pointy ears, so they don't have to get hacked off and forced to stand up!