Tail Docking Ban

Harper_Gal said:
Without feathers on his tail, Harvey will look silly, and be the laughing stock of the shoot, but labs don't suffer the same problems for a reason!!
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Not true, Labs don't suffer the same problems because they have completely different tails and don't work cover half as effenciently as a Spaniel. The best thing is to keep the tail hair around an inch long, any shorter and it doesn't give protection, any longer and it gets caught up.

I'd be wary of clipping any working dog, they have the hair in the places they do for protection, it may be a pain removing things from their feathers, but it is preferable to removing it from their skin.

Patches, if you want I can find you a step by step instruction for a fairly failsafe way of strapping the tail. It last a lot longer than the average strapping and doesn't wax their tails when you take it off either. You just have to keep a roll of tape in your pocket to secure any straggly bits.
 
I wouldn't strip his tail either. I believe the secret is in wrapping some of the tail feather back on itself inside the strapping, is this correct?

Harvey's tail isn't actually as thin at the end as Jasper's was and he does seem to have more "coat" on him than Jasper did. I have clipped his back, head, throat but have left the feather/skirt on him as well as his whiskers.

Obviously he is too young for gundog training yet anyway, but it will be something I'll be discussing with trainers etc when/if we do it.

I'm actually more imminently concerned about the dew claws. Jasper was born at a time when docking wasn't banned in show stock. Whilst he wasn't docked, he did have his dew claws removed. Vets have offered to remove Harvey',given that he's potentially going to be working in cover, during his castration in a few months. Still undecided whether to or not.
 
Otto has his front dews and they don't cause him any problems at all, oddly enough they seem to wear down by themselves! I can understand why you would want them off though, if Otto was to damage one of his I would be cursing whoever didn't remove them in the first place!

The method I have for wrapping the tails doesn't involve wrapping any of the hair in, mainly because at the time Otto was having his tail wrapped it was raw at the end so I didn't want any method that stuck to the tail itself. It does seem to last as long as you take plenty of extra tape to secure loose its with. I'll dig it out and PM it to you if you like.
 
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Do they sit flat? As I've not had a spaniel with dew claws before I have no idea what's normal or not.

Harvey's stick out and he will actually chew on them! He has some issues with his claws. We're always having to trim them, especially his "little toe" ones as they curl right over. I think we've done them 4 times already......and bear in mind we've not had him 3 months yet! They grow so fast.

I can't decide whether to have it done or not. He might never have issues with them, in which case it would be an un-necessary procedure, but then if he does catch them.......decisions decisions!
 
Hen, I had an extremely fluffy brittany (something that was mentioned at Crufts, they finally seem to have cracked the better coats!). And it was all bumfluff, the sort that attracts burrs when nothing else does.

It did, however, help his ears to be kept trimmed.

I apologise if my advise about Harvey's tail was misguided. I've only had one tail out of my three dogs, and it's a rather strange curly thing on a jack russell!
 
They don't stick out as such, but I think it's because they are such tiny little stubs. They look as if they would grow out rather than down. I'll take a picture tomorrow and post it so you can compare.
Otto nibbles his too, I think that's one of the reason they are so short. He also does a lot of fast running and turning on a hardcora track, so I wonder if they are making contact with the ground and wearing down, although none of his other nails are worn so short! Very odd.
 
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