Docking the tail in older pup
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This.
While it's possible to do it is a MUCH harder procedure on the dog once they're older.
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Once the pup is that old it's no longer a dock, but an amputation that MUST be done under anesthesia and can have complications. Docking MUST be done in hte first week after birth.
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I am honestly curious, as I've never had a dog with a docked tail (that I had done)...so they aren't anesthetized at all when done at the appropriate age?
I told her that I would just leave it,she thinks it looks weird. While it is different I told her that makes the pup special. She takes the pup in for its shots,etc in the morning and I told her talk to the vet but that not to be surprised if what you guys are saying he doesn't tell her the exact same thing. She isn't showing the pup and once it gets of age she already wants her spayed. I had never heard of doing an older puppy but I figured you guys would have input.
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I agree with the others. I would NOT dock the tail on this pup at this age. There is no reason at this point to do that. Love the pup for who she is, tail and all.
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No, they don't have a fully formed nervous system yet.
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When done early enough, the puppy is more concerned with being separated from its mother than with the actual procedure. You can look it up on youtube, you'll hear the puppies yelping but they will yelp even without the docking being done, as they're being separated from mum and the litter. As soon as they're put back with the others they quiet down.
I don't believe that, and have never seen the science to prove it.
But, yeah, normally docks on 3-day-old pups are done without anesthetic. Although I understand that some vets use Lidocaine.
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I'll give you that- I'll rephrase that as "the general reasoning is that their nervous systems are not developed enough for the pain to be significant" (Lidocaine sounds like a good choice though)
Some good studies done could be interesting, might lead to changes in practices similar to the change of providing local anesthesia for infant circumcision. Human studies show neonates exhibiting low pain scores compared to older infants but they still can experience pain. I would think it would be similar in dogs.
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You ever seen it done?
There is no science to prove it does hurt either.
But on visual cues, it does not cause them any distress. The go right back to suckling.
Well, her vet may do it. I would hope not, but then some vets do a lot of things I would hope they wouldn't. But there was someone who posted here recently who had their puppies' tails cut at the same time their ears were cut (I think they were around 10 weeks) so obviously some vets do it.
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I can believe it. I used to work as a lab technician in a hospital, and part of the job was to take blood tests from newborn babies. In babies you don't get the blood from the arm like you do in adults, you stick the needle into a vein in the back of the hand. This procedure is painful in adults, which is why it's not usually done, but the babies didn't even feel it. The explanation was that their nerves haven't fully formed yet. The babies were more worried about lying on a table with no human contact for a few minutes than about the needle. None of them cared about the needle at all, no crying, no flinching, nothing.
And then there is the test where you get blood out of the heel, which they didn't seem to notice either.
So it doesn't surprise me at all that it's the same for puppies. I've also heard stories about how singleton puppies that aren't handled at all fail to develop a nervous system and thus have very little feeling in their limbs, to the point where they will injure their feet and not even notice.
This is so often quoted and is scientifically considered wrong. The neural pathways have not been aligned and therefore a pup is very likely to feel more pain and not less, depending upon its own personal pain threshhold. Docking is a layman's term for amputation when the tail is surgically removed - it is still amputation when removed by surgical instruments. http://anti-dockingalliance.com/page_4.htm
Dogs are born with tails and have been from their creation so that is the NORM. Those that are born tailless carry a gene which is rare and recessive and causes other effects which are not fully researched.
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Yeah, but what is the pup's brain doing with that pain?
I'm a chronic pain patient. Trust me, I know pain. I've done very serious research into pain and how it works. Pain is not an automatic thing, it's a process that's heavily modulated by the brain. In other words, just because a pain signal is being produced doesn't mean the brain is interpreting that signal or signify how the brain is interpreting that signal.
It's not that newborn babies don't have the nerves to feel and transmit pain, it's that they don't have the brain pathways set to interpret pain in a way adults do. So, yes, newborns have the capability to perceive pain, but not the way adults do. That requires brain processing that hasn't developed yet.
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