2004-02-18 � Puppy Dog Tails

What can I tell you?

The truth is I still don�t know all that much, really.

Here�s a tidbit. My boss has really, really big hair. Lovely, tall piles of thick, curly hair. She is also brilliant and well spoken and all together a joy.

I know that, quite unexpectedly, I now have a spacious office in an infrequently trafficked corner of the library and that a key to the lock on the door rests in my pocket. I really hoped for a desk in a bullpen, but was prepared for a drawer in a shared workspace. Instead I got an office overlooking a stone garden.

What else...

I get to go back to school for free. I love that.

And there�s an employment contract, which is dandy from a lawyer�s perspective.

~~~~~~

I just had the following phone conversation:

Unnamed Librarian: This is Unnamed Librarian.

Sooner: Hey. This is Sooner.

Unnamed Librarian: Oh. Hello.

Sooner: What�s up?

Unnamed Librarian: Why?

Sooner: Oh, no reason.

Unnamed Librarian: Ok.

Sooner: I was just asking by way of greeting.

Unnamed Librarian: Oh.

Sooner: Just inquiring as to your well being and all.

Unnamed Librarian: Oh.

Sooner: I just hadn�t, you know, spoken to you yet, so I was, you know, breaking the ice or something.

Unnamed Librarian: Ah.

Sooner: It was just a thing.

Unnamed Librarian: �Cuz you said �what�s up� so I thought I wasn�t doing what I was supposed to be doing or something.

Sooner: No, no. Nothing like that.

Unnamed Librarian: Ah.

Sooner: Right.

Unnamed Librarian: Because I�m not supposed to be at the desk until one o�clock.

Sooner: That�s what the chart says.

Unnamed Librarian: It isn�t one o�clock or anything.

Sooner: No, no it isn�t.

Unnamed Librarian: Not yet, anyway.

Sooner: Right.

Unnamed Librarian: So I didn�t miss anything.

Sooner: No.

Unnamed Librarian: So what did you want?

Sooner: Huh?

Unnamed Librarian: You called me. What did you want?

Sooner: I can�t remember.

Unnamed Librarian: You can�t remember?

Sooner: No.

Unnamed Librarian: Oh.

Sooner: Wait.

Unnamed Librarian: What?

Sooner: I remember.

Unnamed Librarian: What?

Sooner: What I wanted to tell you.

Unnamed Librarian: You remembered?

Sooner: You�re scheduled to train me after lunch.

Unnamed Librarian: Yes.

Sooner: I�m going to be a little late.

Unnamed Librarian: Oh.

Sooner: There�s a human resources thing I have to do.

Unnamed Librarian: I see.

Sooner: It�s required.

Unnamed Librarian: No, I know. It�s no problem.

Sooner: Ok.

Unnamed Librarian: Ok.

Sooner: So...

Unnamed Librarian: Well...

Sooner: I�ll see you after lunch then.

Unnamed Librarian: Ok. But a little late

It�s as if Aaron Sorkin is scripting my day.

~~~~~~

For Christmas my father got a puppy. Yes, it�s true that usually the children get the puppies, but my family is just totally screwed up as you well know.

So my dad got a puppy. A cute, adorable boxer mix named Abby. Fourteen weeks old when I was home for the holiday. Older now. She�s a bad little thing, but bad in a cute way. I had a wonderful time playing puppy games. My cats refuse to fetch or chase or tug and no degree of coaxing seems to be able to convince them to act like litter box trained puppies.

Regardless, it was a day or two after Christmas and I was in my parent�s living room playing with the puppy and my grandparents were over. You remember the ones. Over the course of our little tuggy game the puppy got very excited and happy and began to wag her tail vigorously which caused my grandfather to remark, �it�s a shame about that tail.�

I looked at the puppy and her tail seemed to be in great condition to me. I mean it was strong and thick and all the hair was growing in the same direction. It looked like a perfect puppy dog tail to me. So I asked my grandfather what he meant and he said, �I told him I�d clip the tail. I told him I�d do it for him. I�ve done it before.�

So I said, �well the hair on her tail is pretty short and I spent a half hour grooming her earlier today. I don�t think it needs any clipping just now.�

But my grandfather wasn�t talking about grooming. He wanted to remove the tail entirely. More on exactly how he planned to do this below. But first a few brief comments on the amputation of the tail from some breeds, a controversial practice known as �docking.�

There are conflicting reasons given for how and why the practice of docking first came into fashion, but my research indicates that there are more than fifty breeds of dog, boxers among them, which are commonly docked. The most common method used is to place an orthodontic band around the puppy�s tail at three to five days of age, cutting off the blood supply and killing the tissue. The dead tissue then falls off on its own after about a week. There is every indication that at three to five days of age, the nervous system of a puppy is incomplete and many vets and other scientists believe when performed at that time the animal feels no pain.

As the puppy ages, however, the loss of a tail becomes more and more traumatizing to the animal. Therefore, docking procedures performed later in the puppy�s life are performed under anesthesia by a vet.

And though no one really knows why docking was originally practiced there are a number of arguments given for continuing the practice. The first is hygiene. Proponents of docking claim that if the procedure is not performed, the animal�s fecal matter will become tangled and matted in the hair on the tail and that even with frequent grooming this can, in the worst of all cases, cause the animal�s tail and rectum to become infested with maggots.

The second of the most common reasons given for the continuation of docking goes like this. Because docking has been practiced for as long as it has, the gene pool of the breed may be weakened if the animal retains its tail. Since there was no tail to examine, the best of docked breeds have for two centuries or longer been chosen for characteristics exclusive of the tail. Therefore, the best of the docked breeds probably have genetic weaknesses associated with their tails that have not been bred out. Permitting the animal to retain its tail may, again in the worst of cases, lead to genetic weaknesses being introduced into the breeding pool which could permit disease or other malady to flourish throughout the breed.

This argument is closely related to the stand taken by many breeders who claim that undocked puppies prevent the standardization of the breed and therefore make sales of the animals difficult or impossible.

Finally, proponents claim there is a medical necessity to docking. The argument goes like this. Many dogs, especially working and hunting dogs, work in areas where the vigorous wagging of their tails will cause the tails to be traumatized. On some occasions this will require that the tail be treated medically and on the worst of occasions the tail may require amputation. Says Dr. R. Fritsch, Leader of the Clinic of Veterinary Surgeons, Justus-Lieberg University, �[i]t�s called Prevention!!� (sic).

I personally find all of these arguments flawed. First, with regard to hygiene, dog owners having trouble with fecal matter matted in their dog�s hair can take any number of steps to prevent or correct the problem. The dog can be groomed in such a way as to have little or no hair in the troubling area. Their dog may require frequent bathing or a little hygienic attention while the animal is being walked. And parasite infestation is a problem all mammals need to worry about, but maggot infestation? I�d love to see some figures on how frequently this occurs in undocked dogs. I�d wager the number is very low.

As for the genetic weakness and breed standardization arguments, if there are indeed genetic weaknesses associated with the tail of undocked puppies, then it�s high time such weaknesses were discovered and bred out. Let�s get started. And though it may take five or ten years, new standardizations for dog breeds are hardly difficult to imagine in the global market. Docking is already illegal in many European states and dogs are still flourishing there.

The most deeply flawed argument has to be the prevention argument. Yes, removing the animal�s tail will prevent the dog from experiencing trauma to the tail as an adult dog. This occurs in just the same way removing a child�s leg will prevent the child from experiencing the trauma of stubbing his toe or falling out of a tree and breaking her leg or having the leg amputated following a car accident as an adult. But if removing body parts because they may become injured or infected later in life were a good thing we would practice such draconian measures on our selves, wouldn�t we? If that were the standard no doctor would permit a newborn to leave the hospital retaining his or her appendix, right? I mean, we don�t use the appendix for anything and appendicitis causes many people pain, trauma, and even death later in their lives. Why not just remove it when we first get the chance?

Of course I�m all liberal and stuff.

Back to my grandfather and his astonishing offer to cut off Abby�s tail.

At the time this conversation took place, I was completely unaware that docking existed, much less that there was a term describing it. �Wait,� I said. �You want to cut off Abby�s tail? Why?�

�It�s what they do,� said my grandfather. �I�ve done it before.�

�What?!�

My grandfather looked at me like I was from Mars. �Yeah, we had a litter of puppies when your mom was growing up so I took the tails off. They didn�t feel nothin.�

�Did you use ether or something?� Abby was attached firmly to the other end of a chew toy and was pulling on it roughly, trying to get it away from me. When she finally succeeded she shook it heartily and, after determining it was well and truly dead, brought it back to me and laid it at my feet, ready to go again.

�No, no. When they�s young they don�t feel nothin�.�

I got down on all fours and barked at Abby who cocked her head quizzically. �I don�t understand. How did you do this?�

My grandfather collected Abby to demonstrate. �See you feel the tail like this. And see how you can feel in between the bones like that? Well you just find a place in between the bones just like this. Then you pull some skin up like so. Then you take tin snips and just�� He used two fingers to pantomime cutting the dog�s tail off.

�What?! Tin snips?!�

�Yeah. Tin snips. You know. Tin snips. Then you take the extra skin that you pulled up like so and you dip what�s left of the tail in lye.�

�You what?! Dip it in lye? My God in Heaven!�

Demonstration over, my grandfather put the dog down on the ground and headed for the sofa. He shuffles a little in his old age and stumbled a bit, accidentally stepping on Abby�s tail. She yelped in pain and ran out of the room whimpering.

My grandfather continued the lesson. �They don�t feel nothin� in they tails. They tails ain�t got no feeling in �em.�

At this point my grandmother, who had been listening to the entire exchange, could listen no more. �Joe!� she bellowed. �Stop it!�

My grandfather was genuinely confused. �Stop what?�

�You tell the truth, Joe! The truth! Those puppies cried all night!�

�Oh, right. That�s what I forgot,� he said. �You gotta be careful because if you get too much lye on the tail it can drip down into they anus and then that makes they anus itch a little. They don�t like that none.�

�Joe! I swear.� My grandmother had a very different recollection. �You and Ray had been drinking and decided to do the dog�s tails like that and they cried all night for a week! God help you, Joe, you made puppies cry and I still to this day remember it!�

The whole exchange was just surreal. I�m happy to report that Abby�s tail is still intact She�s been spade so her genetic imperfections will die with her, thankfully. Additionally at least to this date, she has not been infested with maggots.

Oh, and whatever you do, keep your new puppies away from my grandfather.

Posted at 11:32 a.m.

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