Spay/neuter

Southern by choice

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First tail docking needs to be done within days after birth. When done at this time it is no more of an issue than removing extra dewclaws. Although I am not a fan of banding tails. I prefer cut and suture or surgical glue.

We had considered having our mutt Lucy's tail getting docked. She was older and it would require anesthesia and would have been far more of an issue so we didn't. I will say however this dog (Lucy's) has broken more blood vessels in people's legs than I can keep track of, as well as she has broken her tail 3 times. She has cut it and spat blood everywhere, she has smacked herself in her face so hard she has yelped and given herself welts. Her tail is truly a whip.

I have seriously bad veins and when she hits mine the spot will blow up as big as a golfball and I am down for days. Obviously I am very careful around her tail. The list could go on but this dogs tail should have been done as a pup! She is half boxer and half lab. It boils down to many "breeders" don't have a clue what they are doing, don't want to spend a dime on a litter and then , and then claim they don't do those things because it is cruel. There are a host of other reasons that this has now become "cruel" in the people's mind. I have watched the whole dog world evolve into something quite disturbing really.

There are certain breeds I think are best to not have tails and some breeds best suited to having their ears cropped. However I am also a fan of dogs having a job and purpose as they were originally domesticated for.

The weird thing is all the boo- hooing and whining about how cruel ears/tail being done are but have no problem doing a spay or neuter. :hu
 

misfitmorgan

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First tail docking needs to be done within days after birth. When done at this time it is no more of an issue than removing extra dewclaws. Although I am not a fan of banding tails. I prefer cut and suture or surgical glue.

We had considered having our mutt Lucy's tail getting docked. She was older and it would require anesthesia and would have been far more of an issue so we didn't. I will say however this dog (Lucy's) has broken more blood vessels in people's legs than I can keep track of, as well as she has broken her tail 3 times. She has cut it and spat blood everywhere, she has smacked herself in her face so hard she has yelped and given herself welts. Her tail is truly a whip.

I have seriously bad veins and when she hits mine the spot will blow up as big as a golfball and I am down for days. Obviously I am very careful around her tail. The list could go on but this dogs tail should have been done as a pup! She is half boxer and half lab. It boils down to many "breeders" don't have a clue what they are doing, don't want to spend a dime on a litter and then , and then claim they don't do those things because it is cruel. There are a host of other reasons that this has now become "cruel" in the people's mind. I have watched the whole dog world evolve into something quite disturbing really.

There are certain breeds I think are best to not have tails and some breeds best suited to having their ears cropped. However I am also a fan of dogs having a job and purpose as they were originally domesticated for.

The weird thing is all the boo- hooing and whining about how cruel ears/tail being done are but have no problem doing a spay or neuter. :hu

i missed the spay/neuter part.....according to them spay/neuter is for the health of the animal...which i dont really buy.

The breeder told us if we did her ears we should just lie and tell people that's what their ears look like and avoid the drama. The vet didn't allow them to tell anyone who did their ears for fear of backlash.

If we ever cropped ears or adopted a crop eared dog we wouldnt lie about it. That seems a little odd but i know how people can be i guess. DH would tell them right where to go, if they tried to give us drama over it. We have had a very very few people try to bring up the tails being docked in a negative way...DH sets them straight. Also not to many people are gonna try to start anything with a man who is 6'4"
 

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The breeder told us if we did her ears we should just lie and tell people that's what their ears look like and avoid the drama. The vet didn't allow them to tell anyone who did their ears for fear of backlash.

Years ago one of the vets I was close to was one of the only ones left doing the ear crops. The real reason back then had more to do with the vets NOT knowing how to do ear crops & tail docks for the specific breeds. Some of these vets really missed the mark on the ears. Pretty bad seeing a Doberman with Pit ears.

Schnauzers are another that many just couldn't get right and IMO theirs need done good golly the ear infections on those dogs were horrible.... rarely did I see one have ear infections with cropped ears.

One really needs to look at the development of breeds... sadly some development also meant drop ears. Many LGD breeds have cropped ears in other countries and it makes sense. Far less trauma and issues for the dogs that actually work.

@misfitmorgan Agree! so much bs out there about spay/neuter and it is so sad. Of course it takes two.... when people just do things blindly without questioning, without educating themselves and just do as they're told that is when we have an entire culture completely brainwashed and I see this all the time. If you are 40 and under for the most part you never have been around intact animals, never been around a female in heat, don't know what to do, don't know how to manage your own dogs. I was around before all this spay/neuter junk and saw what was happening. I have watched this evolve into such crap I can't even go there. I get so mad and so frustrated. This didn't have anything to do with "too many" puppies... never did and still doesn't. If vets would take the 10-15 minutes or hand out a brochure on reproduction and heat cycles instead of bulling people into spaying and neutering for 10-15 minutes then and only then will we see a reduction. Before the spay/neuter programs we had far less dogs, far fewer shelters and far fewer nutjob crazy dogs. I have hundreds of pages of documentation but no time to compile it. When I tell people the truth about it they are kind of in disbelief at first, then comes the look of nahhhhhhhh, then comes the look of wheels turning, then come the questions.
The only time I consider doing such is when it is actually medically necessary.
 

Bruce

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After all we do dock our sheeps tails :hide

Because most breeds of sheep don't have sufficient tail muscles to lift them high when they poop. Then you get a big mess back there. IIRC, Katahdin is one of the few breeds that have decent tail muscles and people don't dock them.

The breeder told us if we did her ears we should just lie and tell people that's what their ears look like and avoid the drama.

Sorry, I have zero respect for that breeder whoever they are. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen ... and choose a different breed to own or sell.

I agree that there are specific dogs that are working and should be cropped/docked for their safety. Doesn't apply to a lap or foot warmer. Plenty of "drop ear" dogs get ear infections whether they are a breed that is typically cropped or not. Yes it is easier to keep them "aired out" if they are up.

I don't understand why we would have more shelters and more dogs after the neuter craze started. Fewer dogs getting out and making puppies without the owner's consent or knowledge should result in the opposite.
 

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I don't understand why we would have more shelters and more dogs after the neuter craze started. Fewer dogs getting out and making puppies without the owner's consent or knowledge should result in the opposite.

That is the point Bruce.
When you stop teaching people HOW to be responsible this is exactly what happens.
Owning a dog use to be a very serious thing and people sacrificed to have the family dog. There certainly wasn't one in every household and even rarer for a family to have two.

Most have no idea how much big money is in the "shelter" industry.
The largest money maker in the vet industry is spay & Neuter.... then add all the health problems that,the bitch especially, end up with after the spay. This is why we now have "cancer centers for dogs".

Not hard to understand really, look at today and how many people have no clue about how their food is even grown.

As far as lap pet dogs... I suppose it is how you see dogs. Because of my background and working professionally with dogs I respectfully disagree with not doing ear cropping or tail docking because they are housepets.
 
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misfitmorgan

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@misfitmorgan Agree! so much bs out there about spay/neuter and it is so sad. Of course it takes two.... when people just do things blindly without questioning, without educating themselves and just do as they're told that is when we have an entire culture completely brainwashed and I see this all the time. If you are 40 and under for the most part you never have been around intact animals, never been around a female in heat, don't know what to do, don't know how to manage your own dogs. I was around before all this spay/neuter junk and saw what was happening. I have watched this evolve into such crap I can't even go there. I get so mad and so frustrated. This didn't have anything to do with "too many" puppies... never did and still doesn't. If vets would take the 10-15 minutes or hand out a brochure on reproduction and heat cycles instead of bulling people into spaying and neutering for 10-15 minutes then and only then will we see a reduction. Before the spay/neuter programs we had far less dogs, far fewer shelters and far fewer nutjob crazy dogs. I have hundreds of pages of documentation but no time to compile it. When I tell people the truth about it they are kind of in disbelief at first, then comes the look of nahhhhhhhh, then comes the look of wheels turning, then come the questions.
The only time I consider doing such is when it is actually medically necessary.

I agree, most people have no clue about dog heat cycles and assume that because they had a dog for 4 months and it hasn't bleed on anything...well it must be spayed already. I have met many people who ended up with pregnant dogs because they thought they were spayed already and never checked for a scar or if they came into heat etc. I have also met people who did not realize that non-spayed female dogs actually bleed...you know like every other mammal on earth...and were disgusted by it so had the dog spayed. I have heard of people with long haired dogs not realizing/checking their sex and ending up with fully intacted males and females together and assuming by their "looks" they were all one sex only. Some of the things people think are really crazy. On my grandparents farm they never ever had a dog who was fixed and they only had litters when they wanted them.

If we educated people about the heat cycles and the signs of them etc, i think we would have less dogs for one big reason. Many many many people do not get their dogs/cats fixed because "they can't afford it" but they have no clue how to prevent them from getting knocked up or knocking up someone elses dog.

Because most breeds of sheep don't have sufficient tail muscles to lift them high when they poop. Then you get a big mess back there. IIRC, Katahdin is one of the few breeds that have decent tail muscles and people don't dock them.

I agree that there are specific dogs that are working and should be cropped/docked for their safety. Doesn't apply to a lap or foot warmer. Plenty of "drop ear" dogs get ear infections whether they are a breed that is typically cropped or not. Yes it is easier to keep them "aired out" if they are up.

Hair sheep do not need their tail docked. You could also avoid docking wool sheep's tails by keeping the tail/rear area shaved down but that's only feasible for a small herd. We long dock our sheep so they retain slightly less then half of their tail.

Our mini dachshund is a house dog, pet dog, lap/foot warmer....but he is also a working dog. He herds rabbits, any smallish furry critter, and cleans rabbit warrens, under building, etc. He used to go down badger holes and drag them out etc. He is mostly retired now cause he is like 10yrs old. Of course the breed has no cropping/docking but when he was younger he got frostbite on his ears and tail which made the hair in the frostbite area grow back white on his ears and his tail to forever have bald spots....so yeah cropping and docking him could very well have been better for him.
 

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With all of the spay and neuter going on for decades now, has anyone asked where the shelter dogs come from ? Since the rescue business is a money maker for the top ranking folks that run the well managed rescue organizations and in order to continue their revenue stream, seems that the rescue groups instead of closing their doors, they now transport dogs from LA which means that they come from their own puppy mills in Mexico, imported street dogs from the Caribean islands, local strays, confiscated dogs from dog hoarders, and now dogs bred for their meat from S. Korea. Then they get free labor from volunteers and operation capital from public donations and telethons, adoption fees and overpriced toys , equipment and feed. Hmmm ?
 
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misfitmorgan

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With all of the spay and neuter going on for decades now, has anyone asked where the shelter dogs come from ? Since the rescue business is a money maker for the top ranking folks that run the well managed rescue organizations and in order to continue their revenue stream, seems that the rescue groups instead of closing their doors, they now transport dogs from LA which means that they come from their own puppy mills in Mexico, imported street dogs from the Caribean islands, local strays, confiscated dogs from dog hoarders, and now dogs bred for their meat from S. Korea. Then they get free labor from volunteers and operation capital from public donations and telethons, adoption fees and overpriced toys , equipment and feed. Hmmm ?

The US also transfer thousands of dogs from kill shelters here up to canada, has been for quite some time now. Seems like any other "charity" corporation that makes millions...move the goods from a place with to many to a place with to "few" and keep new "stock" coming in thru other avenues.
 

TAH

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I would like to hear more on this on spay and neuter and heat cycles?

Our pit mix was neutered at 6 weeks old I personally think that is way to young.
 

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