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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1032-iii House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE SUB-COMMITTEE ON THE DRAFT ANIMAL WELFARE BILL
Wednesday 8 September 2004 MR DUNCAN DAVIDSON and MR ANDREW CONSTANT GINETTTE ELLIOTT, LYNNE SMITH, PROFESSOR DAVID B. MORTON, CLARE O'DEMPSEY and PAULINE BAINES Evidence heard in Public Questions 189 - 229
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Sub-Committee on the Draft Animal Welfare Bill on Wednesday 8 September 2004 Members present Mr Michael Jack, in the Chair Ms Candy Atherton Mr Colin Breed Mr David Drew Mr Mark Lazarowicz Mr David Lepper Mr Austin Mitchell Joan Ruddock Alan Simpson David Taylor Paddy Tipping ________________ Witnesses: Mr Duncan Davidson, Veterinarian, Principal of Mitcham Veterinary Clinic and Mr Andrew Constant, Trustee Animals in Mind, examined. Q189 Chairman: Can I welcome our two witnesses this afternoon: Mr Duncan Davidson, who is a veterinarian and the Principal of Mitcham Veterinary Clinic, and he is joined by Mr Andrew Constant, a Trustee of the organisation Animals in Mind. Gentlemen, may I thank you on behalf of the Committee, for sending in your written evidence? We heard something of the arguments to do with the use of electronic equipment and the training of dogs during the course of our evidence yesterday, but you obviously bring an expertise both for and against these particular mechanisms to us this afternoon. I want to start the questioning by asking you the same question that I have asked all the witnesses: in the context of this Bill. What is the one thing you would want us to take away in terms of being in favour of the measure and what is the one thing you want us not to forget about your reservations about the way that it is currently drafted? Mr Constant, would you care to respond to that question first? Mr Constant: I would say that as far as shock devices are concerned, I would like to see a specific ban on their sale and use, certainly their general sale and use. What would I ask you not to forget? I would ask you not to forget that there are a lot of vulnerable people and animals out there that have been and will continue to be affected very badly by the use of these devices. Q190 Chairman: Your first comment there was to focus obviously on the main concerns you have. Are you generally in favour, though, of the rest of the Bill as it is currently drafted? Mr Constant: I was very pleased particularly with the way it was giving room for future regulation and particularly the fact that people are being given responsibility for the animals which they own, which, as it says in the Bill, they currently are not. So the fact that people can be held accountable if this Bill goes through is brilliant because that has been a difficulty in the past. Q191 Chairman: Mr Davidson? Mr Davidson: As far as the Bill in general is concerned, yes, we are particularly happy that there is an update of the animal welfare legislation. There have been some flaws in it that were recognised in the veterinary profession over the years, and have tried to take steps to improve. Certainly we are quite happy with the way the overall Bill has been drafted, although there are one or two specific areas that the veterinary profession want to discuss and no doubt will discuss in the course of these deliberations. As far as electronic devices are concerned, that is only a very small part of my interest. I do run a veterinary behavioural referral practice and we do see some real problem dogs, and these tend to be dogs which have been to other people already, other training organisations, behavioural organisations, and there are some exceptions where, with the best will in the world, the supposedly kind ways of training, reward training and so on, simply will not work for certain dogs in certain circumstances. We always try reward training and positive methods of training first and in many cases that does work, but you get the odd exception. The odd exception is the type of dog, for example, which is going to chase sheep, is perhaps going to endanger itself and other members of the community by chasing bicycles or by chasing joggers. It is very often predatory behaviours in fact, which are the difficult ones. It gets to the stage where other things have been tried and it is sometimes necessary to try to use some remote way of controlling a dog's behaviour, when the reward that it receives is greater than any reward that you can give it - the reward of chasing a sheep, for example, for a dog that has a strong predatory behaviour, you cannot give it anything better than that. Sometimes you have to use electronic training collars and on very, very odd occasions there is an interrupter, to at least give you half a chance to try and get the dog's attention and try and give it something more positive, as far as the owner/trainer is concerned. It does give you that window of opportunity. That is the main occasion which, in our practice, we use these collars. We use them probably in a fraction of one per cent of the cases that we see, so it is a very, very rare situation. But without them we are stuck and some of these dogs, either they would have to be euthanised or else they would have to be kept in such a way that there would be questions of welfare. For example, they might not be allowed to be taken out at all, or, if they were allowed to be taken out they might have to be kept entirely on leads and muzzles. It gives you this window of opportunity along with behavioural training - not for the owner, necessarily, but for qualified, expert people to use in order to work on a reward basis of improving their behaviour, once you have their attention, once you get them away from the idea of chasing. Q192 Chairman: That was a slightly longer answer than the one before, and I would just like to say, Mr Constant, that there will be plenty of opportunity for you to give full explanation of your own point of view because I would not like you to think that Mr Davidson has had an advantage. Mr Davidson: Can I say three words in reservation, which was the other half of your question? Chairman: You can in a second, but three of my colleagues have caught my eye and I would like to start the questioning. So Candy, Joan and David, in that order. Q193 Ms Atherton: I read both of your submissions with great interest, as someone who has had a dog in her life all of my life, of ranging behaviour, including one, frankly, where I think I was the only person who could properly control it. At various times veterinarians did suggest to me that an electronic collar might be a route to follow. In the end I did not. I read both your submissions and found a lot in both that I could understand and support. Very much Mr Constant's wish to see no collars available, and certainly not in shops and able to be purchased by anybody. And your view, that some animals might actually be put down because of the inability to be able to control them - and we are not talking about teaching a dog to sit and to stay, we are talking about dogs out of control. Mr Davidson: That is a very important point. Q194 Ms Atherton: What would your answer and reaction be to only licensed through a vet, where other routes and behaviour had been pursued? Would you support that, Mr. Constant, and yourself, Mr Davidson? Mr Constant: Mine would be any reduction - and I have some examples, which I hope I can hand out to you later - in the sort of advert that I am looking at, and the sale and use of shock collars in this country would be welcomed by us, and I think by most of the people I have spoken to. Obviously over the last week I have been speaking to a lot of behaviourists; I have been speaking to a lot of Mr Davidson's colleagues who are pro shock collars because we want their opinions too. We cannot argue with what Mr Davidson says; what we would say is that if you follow the positive route to the end and you were fully aware that there is no alternative. If you cut out that alternative you will find a way through, that is the way we see it. What we feel that Mr Davidson and people who do this - and he says he is a very, very small percentage and that is great, that is brilliant - if we cut it out altogether we will find ways. We are in a transition at the moment. Over the last ten years positive reward has come a long way. If you went to a dog school ten years ago you would have been asked to bring a choke chain, a stern voice and lots of dominant behaviour. Now you are asked to bring squeaky toys and lots of praise. The trend is towards positive reward, and I think what is happening is that we are hanging on to some of the old ways and that is where we feel we need to move forward. If there was a choice between nothing at all and only licensed users, then definitely yes. Mr Davidson: I think we do have a certain amount of common ground. Mr Constant: We would still argue with you about the use of it. Mr Davidson: Absolutely, but there is a great deal of common ground. Certainly in the behavioural world we are very much in favour of positive methods of training and getting away from the old fashioned punishment methods, and that is perfectly fair, but we still have exceptions and these are exceptions where, if you are going to work with positive reward, they might never get better; on the other hand, they might get better but there might be an awful lot of injuries and accidents that happen before they got better. Positive reward can sometimes take years and during that time a lot of work goes into it but accidents still might happen. You can certainly improve the perception of the dog to the difference between positive and negative by using an electric collar in these rare circumstances, because they get the perception that what they want to do that they think is rewarding is not actually that rewarding, and usually after literally one or two uses of the electronic collar they understand that there is not a lot to be gained by chasing sheep. Mr Constant: The thing that I would come back on that and say is that the one or two uses could also include one or two misuses. There are thousands of dogs that we have heard of and that we hear about. It is not evidence, it is purely hearsay, but to a certain extent there is such a volume of it that you have to believe it, that there are so many problems. There is a court case in Brighton where three dogs attacked and killed a little dog because the lady was using a shock collar, and the first time she tried it the dogs thought the little dog was attacking them and they piled in on the little dog. It is basically called redirected aggression; you smack the three-year old and the three-year old smacks his brother. This is what dogs do, the dog feels pain and it looks round for something or someone to take it out on. Mr Davidson: Here we are talking about misuse of collars, and that is fine, and I agree that there are situations where collars can be misused. There are equally situations where other things can be misused; obviously check chains can be misused, boots can be misused. It is a lot more subtle misusing a collar. Chairman: We have the misused message. We will move on to Joan Ruddock. Q195 Joan Ruddock: I was going to ask a question in the same vein that Candy asked. Let us be clear: at the moment, Mr Davidson is saying that it is under one per cent that you would deem to be the proportion of dogs that can only respond to this treatment. Mr Davidson: That is in our practice; it is probably even less across the whole sphere of dogs. Q196 Joan Ruddock: Because that would be a very important distinction, would it not, because it might be that Mr Constant would say that there is a need to outlaw the use by untrained, ordinary owners; would I be correct in thinking that is really the position? Mr Constant: Yes, we would definitely like to see that. We would like to go further, but, yes, that would be a plateau for us. Q197 Joan Ruddock: So we would be looking to see could it be restricted to use by licensed people. If that were the case is it likely that the manufacturers would still stay in business? Is this a huge business at the moment and would it be reduced to a tiny business if this were to be changed, as you suggest? Mr Constant: It is huge. Mr Davidson: That is where there might be some difficulties anyway because the manufacturers of the good collars are generally multi-nationals. Mr Constant: It is an international market. Q198 Chairman: Mr Constant was asked the question and I would like him to respond and then you can put your two-penneth in. Mr Constant: It is an international market. The shock collar manufacturers are primarily in the USA and two, as far as I am aware in Germany, but, as far as I am aware, the German manufacturers do not have markets in the UK. If there were to be a ban over here it would not be the first because Austria has banned them and three states in Australia have banned them. There are others and I have not had time to find out who they are, but I believe that they are basically countries around Austria that have banned them. This is another reason why we want to see a ban now. I do not think sales in Britain are strong enough for the manufacturers to say that it is going to harm their businesses because they sell something like 600,000 to 800,000 of them in the USA, or they did do in 2002. It was 500,000 in 2003, and I think what they are looking to do is open up new markets around the world and we are one of them. I do not think that we are going to harm any industry by saying no to shock collars at the moment. My personal view is that we will not in a couple of years' time because their use is waning. Q199 Joan Ruddock: If I may just interrupt you, Mr Davidson is actually saying that there are some dogs for which the alternative, he suggests, is either they are put down or they have to have a shock collar. Mr Constant: I would quite happily say to Mr Davidson, you show me the dog that you feel needs a shock collar and I will come and I will do the work and I will prove to you that a shock collar is not needed and then you throw away your shock collar. How is that? I would do that with any dog because I have an enormous backup from people like Robin Walker, who is a well-known vet behaviourist, Dr Ian Dunbar, who is a well-known vet behaviourist, Dr Roger Mugford, who is a well-known vet behaviourist. All I would have to say is, I have been challenged to sort out a dog and I would have half a dozen of the top behaviourists in the world coming with me to help solve this problem and we could do it. I have done it; I live with nine dogs that were going to be destroyed. We have had them from various re-homing centres and we live perfectly happily with them, with no problems; they are not a danger to the public, they are not a danger to us, they are not a danger to each other. We have absolutely no problems and I can guarantee you that at least four of them, if they were to have gone into Mr Davidson's for a referral, he would have probably suggested, "I am sorry, there is nothing you can do with this dog, you need a shock collar." Q200 Chairman: Mr Davidson? Mr Davidson: Mr Constant has mentioned three of my behavioural colleagues and we certainly do have cases that have been to see some of these behavioural colleagues that he has mentioned, and have not been successful and we have eventually ended up having to use these methods. So it does not always work at the end of the day. The other thing we would mention also is that if we did go towards a full ban, as Mr Constant was suggesting, and, as he rightly says, these collars are manufactured all over the world and are very easily available in America and some other European countries, okay, all the good guys that do know how to use them, and hopefully use them in a very limited way, are probably not going to use them because they have their own reputations to consider and they are not going to use them illegally. But there is a possibility that we are opening up a situation where people that maybe should not be using them are going to get them anyway, bring them in from America and over the Internet - and this happens already - so it is possible we might end up with an increase in the level of inappropriate use rather than appropriate use, whereas if we were to limit the sale in this country perhaps to, in my opinion, e-numbered equipment, we could determine that these were good pieces of equipment that were not going to cause danger. Two of these [batteries] is actually the power that is used for a standard electric collar, a well manufactured one, and these are the same sort of batteries as you put into pacemakers and things like that - six volts. It does not cause serious problems; it does cause an interesting little muscle twitch and it is that which the dog responds to. We in veterinary practice used a technique called Faradism, which is a physiotherapy technique - you may have heard of it in gibbons as well - where you exercise various muscles by using electric currents across the muscles. In fact the current that is used for Faradism in horses is actually higher than the current that is used for electric collars and it does the same sort of thing, it moves the muscle, and that has not been called for a ban. Cattle prods use somewhere in the region of 60 times the amount of current that is used for electric collars on dogs. So nothing has been shown in the literature or papers and research that indicates that there is any physical damage happens to the dogs. It may well be that Animals in Mind are going to show you a picture of a Labrador, which I have as well, which has a large area of moist eczema, and that is where it is clearly stated that something has gone wrong with the collar and the battery has leaked and corrosion has got on to the skin and the dog has received acid burns from the batteries which have caused the problem. But there are no pictures anywhere of well designed properly manufactured electric collars that actually cause burns. Q201 Mr Drew: Just an observation to start with. It is an interesting debate about the electric shock treatment on dogs, but of course we have electric shock treatment on human beings, so there is a parallel there. Mr Davidson: I think it is quite different. Q202 Mr Drew: We do. If you are mentally ill you have ECT. So there are all sorts of issues there how we treat people in certain conditions. What I am struggling with here is this: I want to know about the scale of this, I want to know how often is this the way in which some people see as inevitable to try and train their dogs. I would be interested to know how they go about doing this. Clearly they can at the moment buy a collar, so they can presumably abuse the way in which they use that collar. I accept what you say about the possibility of being able to obtain these devices from elsewhere if they are banned in this country, but I suppose it is about what would be the standard practice for dealing with difficult animals and, more particularly, the worry I would have is if it was seen as inevitable if you have an unruly dog that you have to have that dog put down. Are there numbers kept and who does the work on this? Mr Davidson: Numbers are not kept and in fact in the UK at the present moment it would be quite exceptional for your average dog owner to even consider using something like that. Your average dog owner loves his dog; your average dog owner is not going to use anything that they will perceive to be particularly nasty for their own dog. There are not many dog owners who would take an opposite view to that. There might be that there are some but to my mind that would be the exception - we do not meet them. Mr Constant: I do not think that is the danger. I think one of the dangers is that the market in the States is shrinking, and that is from the American Humane Society and one large organisation in America called San Francisco Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals. They state that the market is shrinking. Could I pass round some of these? [Leaflets distributed] The worry for us is not that experienced people are going to use them occasionally; the worry for us is that they become generally available. This is one advertisement of thousands taken from the Internet on the front of here. I would be quite happy to say that I do not think any behaviourist is going to agree with this first line statement - and the yellow bits I have highlighted - "Stop your pup barking in three days." This is the road down which shock collars are going. I can already see people wincing at what it says in here. People are being told that your first line of attack with dog training should be a shock collar and then you will have no more problems. What the manufacturers are advocating generally at the moment is that why wait until your dog has a serious behaviour problem? Stop the behaviour in the first place by not allowing any of these problems. In contrast to what Mr Davidson was saying, if you look at the very last highlighted paragraph, this device is capable of what they claim as giving - bad grammar I appreciate - "Seriously attention getting jolt". That is what they claim their device is capable of. Q203 Chairman: Would I be right, Mr Constant, in assuming, particularly in the light of what Mr Davidson said, that this is not his territory, he is dealing with dogs who have extreme behavioural problems which he would argue have not been capable of being dealt with by the techniques in which you clearly have an expertise. So we make a differentiation between this kind of stuff and the work that Mr Davidson does? Mr Constant: Yes, I think so; I think there is a differentiation. My personal belief is that if there were a general ban on the sale and use then the general public would stop using them. Already the number of behaviourists who use them and advocate them is declining. We did a survey of about 20 behaviourists last year and most of them said that, yes, in quite a few circumstances they would use one. I phoned six behaviourists yesterday and, like Mr Davidson, they say in very extreme cases. Already the behaviourists are realising the problems they cause and are shrinking their own use. I think this is for two reasons. I think it is primarily because of the problems they cause but, secondly, it is because positive reward is being understood and promoted better and getting across to people better and people are understanding the positive methods much better and they are being much more effective. Q204 Mr Mitchell: I take it that the choice between you is a total ban on sale and use and a restricted access; is that right? Mr Davidson: I believe so, yes. Mr Constant: Yes, I would accept a restricted access; I would not argue with that. I would then go on to argue with Mr Davidson that he should not be doing it, but if you said, yes, we will do a restricted ban I would say fine. I am not going to argue on that. Q205 Mr Mitchell: But it is difficult to see how a restricted access would work in the sense that if it is going to be available on the Internet, to get it from the States or whatever, if it is going to be available to old ladies in Brighton who are putting it on three dogs which go out and kill little dogs, or me to training the wife or something like that - do not react to that! Mr Constant: Or children, where that has been used. Q206 Mr Mitchell: There is not going to be an effective restriction of access because you cannot restrict access to vets and registered users. Mr Davidson: At the moment of course there is no restriction of access. Albeit that there is apparently a problem it is a very, very small problem in the UK. There have not been any prosecutions taken by the RSPCA at all, to my knowledge, for cruelty as a result of using an electric collar. So it is not a huge deal at the moment. Obviously there are various possibilities that you could do it; you could have a licensing scheme where people were approved as appropriate operatives and they were people who have a working and qualified knowledge of behaviour and can use them in exceptional circumstances, almost like gun licensing, but, then again, who is going to control it? There are other ways that you could perhaps go. Certainly one of my main contentions is that there should be licensed sales of these in the UK whereby the only things that are actually sold are ones that are approved as being of suitable quality and that limits the possibility of serious problems from bad manufacture, for example. It could then be that there might be a chain of responsibility comes down from the people who have the licence to sell them to ensure that the people that they are selling them to are using them responsibly, and that might well be that they would only be able to sell them to people who were known to be qualified and trained in the use of these and able to use them proficiently, and then these people in turn - the next point down the chain - ensure that the only people who are actually using them are people that they know. So you have got a fairly short chain of responsibility, but it would be then that perhaps some of the responsibility would revert back to the licensee, so the people who are actually manufacturing and selling them in the first place. Q207 Mr Mitchell: You included in that a possible restriction by type. I see from this literature that you start presumably with a low voltage shock, or whatever, and if the animal does not respond you can build it up. Can you just restrict the power of it? Mr Davidson: Yes, absolutely; there are some that you can work on low power and some that you can increase to higher power, and it might be that one of the things you would want to look at would be a maximum power that you can suitably use in these devices. In actual fact it depends on the dog. You have some dogs that have a very, very high threshold of response, where you can give a fairly high jolt and they hardly respond at all. The vast majority of dogs need an exceptionally low jolt and I think a lot of it is to do with their own endorphins at the time and what they are actually doing at the time when they feel discomfort. Mr Constant: The question I would ask is, if this shock collar device has been used on children by some parents would we be debating the level at which we are allowed to shock children, if this debate was about children? Mr Constant: It depends on how you bring up children. Chairman: It could lead to debate almost anything that is put in front of us. I want to bring David Lepper in for our final question on this session. Q208 Mr Lepper: For my information, because I am not clear about the distinction here, I know that the Kennel Club in their evidence make a distinction between the kind of collars you have been talking about and freedom fences, and I see that there is reference in Mr Constant's literature here to an invisible fence system. Do either of your organisations or you as individuals make that same distinction? Mr Davidson: I do not because I really cannot see that there is any difference between freedom fences and electronic training collars; they both work in the same way, they both work with an electric collar. A dog has to be trained with a freedom fence to understand the limit beyond which it can go. To do that you have to start by training the dog on an electric collar, in exactly the same way as you would train a dog not to chase sheep. So to me there is no distinction whatsoever. Mr Constant: If you can train a dog using that then you can train a dog using reward and using positive methods, which is better for animal welfare. This is what we are looking at. This is not good for animal welfare because we are advocating negative punishment and negative stimulation and that is our point. What we should be promoting is positive and that is what an Animal Welfare Bill should do. There are lots of problems with fences; dogs have been known to run at them, just take the shock and then they are outside and they cannot get back in. Other dogs have been known, because they give a warning bleep before they give a shock, to sit at the side of the fence, wait until the bleeps stop and then they have a signal that they can cross. It is like a green crossing for the dog. They sit there, wait for the beeps to stop - "Oh, right, the power has gone off now, I can walk out." They have done this; these are reports from the States where they are used quite a lot. The other thing it does not do, if you use the perimeter fence, is to stop other animals coming on to the property and possibly entering into a territorial problem with the dogs that are there, and it does not stop people either goading or enticing the dogs towards the fence to watch them have a shock. We would like to believe that that would not happen but I think everybody knows that it would; if people have a chance to have a bit of a laugh at a dog's expense - not everybody obviously, but there are people who would do that. Q209 Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much indeed. It has been a very interesting debate and we will reflect carefully not only what you have said but also the information you have kindly sent us. If on reflection there is anything else that you want to communicate to the Committee we would be happy to receive that in writing. Thank you both very much for coming. Mr Constant: I do have some other stuff to give out, which could I ask for people to read later? The only other thing, which may interest you anyway, it is a leaflet that we produce about positive training. So maybe you would like to have one of those and read it at your leisure? Mr Davidson: I have a couple of things here. One of them is the Dutch paper that the Kennel Club may have referred to yesterday, which they have been using in their anti training collar campaign. It needs to be read and you will actually find that the conclusions that the Dutch people come to is that they should still be used for exactly these events that I have mentioned, these exceptions. It does not say that they should be banned, it says they should be restricted. Chairman: Thank you very much for the instant response and further information! We are very grateful.
Witnesses: Ms Ginette Elliott, Secretary, Council of Docked Breeds, Ms Lynne Smith, Treasurer, Council of Docked Breeds, Professor David B Morton, Head of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics, University of Birmingham, Ms Clare O'Dempsey, Adviser, Anti-Docking Alliance and Ms Pauline Baines, Founder, Anti-Docking Alliance, examined. Q210 Chairman: Sadly our witnesses from the Council of Docked Breeds are not yet able to be with us. We are perhaps slightly ahead of the schedule that we set ourselves, but we have a vote at 4 o'clock and I am mindful of the fact that colleagues may not be able to return to the Committee. So we will start with the Anti-Docking Alliance and we will question you. When the other witnesses come I hope you will respect the fact that we are giving you a free run at the moment from your side of the argument, but we will want to turn to the others for their observations. So, for the record, we have Professor David B Morton, Head of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics of the University of Birmingham, Pauline Baines, Founder of the Anti-Docking Alliance and Clare O'Dempsey, the Adviser. I think I am fairly clear what your answer might be to the question I have asked everybody: what is the one thing you would like us not to forget in terms of your view, and I guess it must be the ending of docking, full-stop. So I am going to be terribly rude and say that I will take that as read. The other question I have asked is, do you generally favour the Bill other than this particular area of concern? Ms O'Dempsey: Other than this are of concern, yes, we welcome the Bill. Q211 Chairman: That is helpful to us. We had a flavour of some of the arguments about tail docking through yesterday's evidence and one of the things that perhaps you might like to comment on is this question of the science of working out particularly whether very young dogs actually feel any pain or not. We seem to get two very distinct sides of the argument, so perhaps you might like to contribute your views on that? Ms O'Dempsey: Can I hand over to David for that? But can I just make clear before he starts speaking, that although he is here at the invitation of the ADA, because we believe his expertise can be of assistance to the Committee, he is not a member or representative of the organisation; so he is speaking in an expert capacity. Professor Morton: What we want to see is an end to non-therapeutic docking. I think we are happy for docking if it is done for the best interests of the individual animal to go ahead, if it has injured its tail, for example. So I think that you have to differentiate between therapeutic and non-therapeutic docking. Is that fair enough? Q212 Chairman: You tell us because we are not in the business of making judgements; we are in the business of asking questions. Professor Morton: If the dog has injured its tail, if it is the veterinary decision that the professional clinical judgement is that it should have the tail removed for its best interests, then we would be happy for that. But where it is done for cosmetic reasons or where it is done in terms of prophylactics, there we have some difficulty. We want to see a ban on that particular aspect. I have been looking at the docking of various newborn species and where research has been done is in pigs, lambs, mice and puppies. By far and away the bulk of evidence is on lambs and mice, where a lot of it is carried out. It is carried out in mice in order to genotype the mouse, to decide whether it is the right genotype, and the tip of the tail is taken off in that work. There is some other work that has gone on in pain perception in very young animals, and that shows that the nervous system of very young animals is immature, and it is immature in the sense that these animals do not possess the descending inhibitory fibres which come down from the brain to the spinal cord, which actually modify impulses going up to the brain, and so very young animals are likely to feel more pain than older animals, and it is not until these young animals are two to three weeks of age that their nervous system matures. That is where this idea has come from that very young animals feel more pain than older animals. What has been left out in the debate and what the new information is - and this is work coming out of human babies and also mice - that after you cut the tip of the tail off there is an increased sensitivity to pain, not only around the tail tip but on the tail as a whole; you get what is called hyperalgesia, so it seems to spread from that area, and if you apply a painful stimulus they respond more in areas that are remote from the site of surgery than before. That response in mice has been shown to persist for several months. There is a very interesting analogy in humans, when babies are circumcised. They have looked at the pain response of babies at vaccination six months later and circumcised boys seem to show more pain responses on vaccination than uncircumcised boys at that six-month period, even though they have been circumcised in the first few days of life. So at the time of docking the evidence shows that puppies feel pain, and probably more pain than adults, although that has not been done. But we know that young animals feel pain and the persistence of that sensitivity can endure for months afterwards. Q213 Chairman: Thank you. Can I welcome the Council for Docked Breeds, who have come to join us, Ginette Elliott, their Secretary and Lynne Smith their Treasurer. We were just asking the Anti-Docking Alliance about the science and you have heard what Professor Morton has said in terms of the new science and the potential lasting effects of pain. As an organisation which has a diametrically opposed point of view to the one that we have just heard from, would you care to comment on the science of pain in this context? Ms Elliott: Obviously I cannot go into the same sort of science that Professor Morton can, but we do have information from three professors. One is as recent as the year 2000 and one was only a few weeks ago. Professor Granjean of the Veterinary School of Alfor in France is the main author and scientific co-ordinator of the Royal Canine Dog Encyclopaedia. He says: "The neonatal period begins at birth." It is called the 'vegetative phase'. "Few reflex activities ... development of the nervous system, as myelination occurs from the anterior to the posterior end of the dog ... the perception of pain is the last thing to appear in neurological development ..." Professor Hayles, a biomedical research professor in the Faculty of Medicine in New South Wales has examined the scientific research published in international journals and has subsequently tested reflexes in neo-natal puppies. "Re. the scientific literature there is only one study of tail docking in puppies and although it purports to show the procedure is painful the study is scientifically flawed by omitting control pups. (b) It is invalid to compare humans or lambs with puppies; (c) studies of newborn rats, which may validly be compared with puppies have shown that neuro-physiological pain mechanisms are not effectively functional until around eleven days of age. Re. reflexes, Hales has observed in neo-natal puppies that the characteristic hind paw scratching in response to tickling mid side skin is initially absent but is faintly present in most pups at day eight and does not exhibit adult like characteristics until at least day 14." Q214 Mr Mitchell: I do not see that showing that very young animals feel pain tells us anything very much on this issue. The real question is - and there must be pain, I suppose - that we do not know anything about the duration, the intensity or the long-term consequences of that pain. What are the long-term consequences of docking? What damage does it do or what advantage does it confer on an animal, dog classically, that has had its tail docked? Could you tell us about that? Professor Morton: I think it goes behind that to ask the ethical question, which is should we inflict harm on animals in order to improve their cosmetic value to us as humans? I find that a questionable thing. If we have duties to animals not to cause them avoidable pain or unnecessary pain, which most people, I feel, would accept as being acceptable in most situations where society uses animals, we try to minimise the amount of pain and suffering caused to animals; or we try to balance it against the benefits. I can see that there is a benefit in docking a dog that has got its tail injured, as I said, for therapeutic purposes; I am far less comfortable with docking a dog in order to improve its appearance or to prevent it damaging its tail later on. Why do you dock 100 per cent of dogs when perhaps less than one per cent or less than .01 per cent are going to damage their tails at a later date? It seems to me crazy. Q215 Mr Mitchell: But that is an ethical question. What are the practical problems? What are the consequences for dogs that are docked? Does it have consequences for balance, for urination, whatever? What are the consequences? Professor Morton: There are very good scientific studies on consequences except for these. One is that anecdotally dogs with tails are better balanced, they are better able to do agility tests, they are better able to race; greyhounds, for example, without tails cannot go around corners as agilely. The second thing is that when you dock some animals occasionally you will lose one because they bleed to death or because they get an infection. There are other issues about animals that have been docked, which are unable to show their emotional state to other animals and may be involved in aggression and fights because they are unable to signal to other animals that they are happy or they are unhappy with what is going on. I think there are certain issues like that which are the consequences of docking. There are clinical issues and also behavioural issues. Q216 Mr Mitchell: To the dock brigade, why do you want to subject animals to those kind of consequences? Ms Elliott: Because we believe it is a preventative welfare measure and there are breeds that are born naturally tailless; they do not have problems with communicating or balance. I cannot see what the problems are, quite frankly. It should be a freedom of choice. If people want to leave tails on, fine, but if they do not they should have that freedom of choice. Q217 Joan Ruddock: Can I ask for clarification? When you say that there are breeds that are "born tailless", are they breeds that have been crossbred by human beings to produce that effect? Ms Elliott: All breeds are manmade. Q218 Joan Ruddock: Precisely. What I am trying to establish is, in the natural world we would not see these animals except in aberrant circumstances, a genetic fault, coming without a tail, I would assume? So when you say there are tailless breeds there are tailless breeds because we have engineered that to come about by choice? Ms Elliott: Yes. Ms Smith: There are a number of breeds that are traditionally docked, which a lot of them have a gene which they are born with bobtails anyway. You have the Brittany, you have the Corgis, you have the Swedish Vallhunds, and some of them are born naturally with a short bobtail. They do not have problems with balance, they do not have problems with aggression with other dogs. Q219 Ms Atherton: I notice mostly dog breeders who are opposed to a ban. When you go to Crufts is there an international view on docking and does it affect judging at Crufts, if perhaps there were dogs in one breed if you had to have the tail docked to be part of that classification? Ms Elliott: It should not affect the judging but I am sure it does. Ms Smith: If you have a judge in the ring who prefers the breed to be docked then it would be fair to say that if there were two dogs of equal standard he or she would probably put the docked breed first and the tailed one second. Q220 Ms Atherton: But they would not preclude dog breeders from participating, it would be more about changing the attitude of the judges? Ms Smith: Yes, but at every dog show the judge has his own personal choice; it is one person's opinion of a dog on a particular day. Ms O'Dempsey: Perhaps I can refer the Committee to the last page of the ADA's submission, page 13, which has a list of those countries which have a complete or almost complete ban from docking. Dogs in those countries, obviously particularly the Scandinavian countries, who have not been docking for almost 20 years in the case of Norway and Sweden, all dogs in those countries are shown with tails. If I could just come in on that? There is a Danish Old English Sheepdog breeder and judge - and I have a transcript of a talk that they gave in advance of a show last year - saying that she thought of giving up, but did not. She is Dr. Birgitte Schjoth, a veterinary surgeon in Denmark, exhibitor, international judge, and billed here as "Owner of Denmark's top kennel, Danish Delight". She says: "It is without doubt better and sounder for the dog with a tail, but it is extremely difficult to get used to for those who have had the breed for so many years. For a short time I myself considered giving up when we had the docking-ban introduced in Denmark in '93, but I just could not find another breed I liked so much. I have lived with, bred and shown Old English Sheepdogs with tails for seven years now and with success, contrary to what everybody told me." She is speaking before an international show. "Today I have gotten used to the tails. So much so that I sometimes catch myself thinking that the docked ones actually lack something - the tail. I have fought hard in my country for permission to dock but with no success at all." She adds at the end, "None of the arguments for docking hold when you enter into a serious discussion." She also says, if I can produce one more quote: "In the beginning I thought it would be more difficult to sell pups with tails than without but it was not. People actually like them with tails, even those who have had Old English Sheepdogs for many years." Q221 Chairman: I want to pick up on a thought process that comes out of what you are saying because the two respective organisations before us deal with the question of working dogs. In the Council for Docked Breeds' evidence you make an important point; you say, "However, if docking does not compromise the welfare of working dogs, then we do not see that an identical procedure performed on a non-working dog, for example to prevent future hygiene problems, compromises the welfare of the dog." I noticed in the Anti-Docking Alliance's evidence some observations, for example that the UK Fire Service Search and Rescue Dog Teams and others also use undocked dogs, such as Border Collies, to work in confined and hazardous environments. I am getting confused because one of the arguments that was put to us that certain working dogs, to prevent damage, to give them the best chance to carry out their work in confined or dangerous spaces needed to be docked, and yet if the UK Fire Service and Search organisations say that, for example, even in earthquake situations or factory blasts they can work okay, I am now confused whether you really do need on working dogs to dock or not to dock. I wonder if one or other of you would like to respond to that to try to give me greater understanding of this particular matter? Ms Elliott: I think it is because they used different breeds. The Customs & Excise use English Springers, which have a very vigorous tail action. If they are sent into a lorry to look for drugs or whatever their tails, if they are full tailed, smash against the container and spray blood everywhere. The Border Collie is not a docked breed anyway, it has a thick covering of hair on its tail to protect it, and that is the difference. Q222 Chairman: So, to adopt the wrong analogy, in your view it is horses for courses? Ms Elliott: Yes. Q223 Chairman: Professor? Professor Morton: I was going to try to help because I am not here as a representative, but I think it depends on the type of work that is being considered, and my point is that I do not agree with preventive docking because I think the number of times an animal, even an animal that has worked, gets a tail injury that needs it to be docked as an adult, is a very, very small percentage of all those animals that carry out that activity. So I do not see why we cause harm to 100 per cent of animals for the sake of 0.01 per cent. Ms Elliott: Can I just say that the 0.01 per cent at the moment is because 99 per cent of normally docked dogs are getting docked. I expect that to go through the roof if we have to start leaving tails on. Professor Morton: That has not happened in places where there is a complete ban, like Sweden and Norway. One veterinary clinic looked at the incidence of docking in docked dogs and undocked dogs and their figures did not support what Ginette is saying. In fact, when you allow for the number of animals there was no difference in tail injuries between docked and undocked dogs, and that is the only survey that has been done in a peer review paper. Ms Elliott: I was going to say that we vaccinate our children as a preventative measure. It is the same sort of thing. We are protecting the dog. I have pictures in here of maggot infestation. Q224 Chairman: I hear what you say, but I do not want to get into child inoculation issues! Ms O'Dempsey: Can I just say that obviously there is never going to be a meeting of minds between each end of the table here, but we would not say it is analogous with vaccination, we would say it is analogous to chopping someone's little finger off at an early age just in case they caught it later in the car door when being taken out of their baby seat. Q225 Mr Mitchell: To the Anti-Docking Alliance, first of all. If non-therapeutic docking was included in the Bill, if it was made illegal, how would it be enforced? In the past I gather breeders of docked animals went to the vet to do it in what one would hope would be better conditions and more safely. If the vets are precluded from doing it and people still want to do it, are we going to get back street docking? Ms O'Dempsey: Back street docking takes place already among people who think that, for example, a Rottweiler should not have a tail. Q226 Mr Mitchell: But how are you going to stamp it out? The dog cannot talk. Ms O'Dempsey: If there were no exemptions at all then it would be very clear that any dog born after a certain date had been illegally docked, whether by a veterinary surgeon or by a back street docker. If there were any exemptions, as we understand DEFRA is currently considering for dogs that can be proved to be working dogs, then we think that makes it much greyer, whether a dog has been legally or illegally docked. So the system that we understand is currently proposed would, we think, be much harder to enforce than a complete moratorium, during which proper scientific studies could be carried out, with peer review, to see whether these injuries in working dogs actually occurred in the large enough numbers to justify bringing in an exemption. As David has already said, none of the countries that have banned docking completely for getting on for 20 years have felt it necessary to derogate from that ban. Q227 Mr Mitchell: One final question from me. What does it matter? It worries me that people get such religious enthusiasm on both sides of the argument. Why is it so important? Ms Elliott: I think the thing is that the UK breeds the best pedigree dogs in the world. They are exported all over the world; we have been breeding them for centuries, top quality dogs. Do we really want to be known as the generation that spoilt it all? David Taylor: Does "best" necessarily equal tailless, then for some breeds? Joan Ruddock: That is why I asked the question. Chairman: That is the message that we have. Joan Ruddock wants to bring our questioning to a conclusion. Q228 Joan Ruddock: I wanted to check with Professor Morton on the evidence coming from Scandinavia where, as you say, you have 20 or 30 years of experience. Does that specifically include the breeds that are used here as working dogs, or are there breeds that they were using as working dogs, which were docked dogs and are no longer docked dogs? Professor Morton: To be frank we do not know because there has been no peer review study published. All I can talk about is anecdotal evidence that in Sweden particularly they have commissioned a study to be done comparing the incidence of tail injuries before the ban and after the ban, and those results have never been published. If it had been so obvious - there are many common breeds like the Springer Spaniels that are used in Sweden and in Britain - I would have thought that we would have known about that by now, and nothing has been published on it, and the Swedish government has not reversed their ban at all. Q229 Joan Ruddock: Presumably, people must know who has done the study. Why cannot this information be found? Professor Morton: Because it is not there. People are doing studies, studies are being commissioned, but they have not found any significant results. There has been no difference before and after the ban, I think is the real reason. Remember, I am just one person. I might have two or three veterinary friends; we are trying to get a large number of animals into the survey so you need to have a more professional study than that. Could I just make point to Mr Mitchell there? We docked horses at one point, but do not do that now; we cropped dogs' ears at one point, and we do not do that in the UK. The Kennel Club stamped out ear cropping in dogs by refusing to allow people to show them in the ring. Chairman: Right. Can I thank both organisations for your kindness in coming and giving your evidence and for answering our questions so fully, and may I again reiterate my thanks for the written evidence which you sent us, it is much appreciated. Thank you very much.
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