Annex A
DOCKING OF
DOGS' TAILS
RCVS position
[Please note that due to an error the advice
from the 1993, rather than the 1996, Guide to Professional Conduct
was originally set out in this Guide; corrected September 2000]
Leading Counsel has advised:
1. Docking, which may be defined as the
amputation of the whole or part of a dog's tail has, since July
1993, been illegal under UK law, if performed by a lay person.
2. The Royal College has for many years
been firmly opposed to the docking of dogs' tails, whatever the
age of the dog, by anyone, unless it can be shown truly to be
required for therapeutic or truly prophylactic reasons.
3. Docking cannot be defined as prophylactic
unless it is undertaken for the necessary protection of the given
dog from risks to that dog of disease or of injury which is likely
to arise in the future from the retention of an entire tail. The
test of likelihood is whether or not such outcome will probably
arise in the case of that dog if it is not docked. Faecal soiling
in the dog is not for this purpose a disease or injury, and its
purported prevention by surgical means cannot be justified.
4. Similarly, docking cannot be described
as prophylactic if it is undertaken merely on request, or just
because the dog is of a particular breed, type or conformation.
Council considers that such docking is unethical.
5. Docking a dog's tail for reasons which
are other than truly therapeutic or prophylactic is capable of
amounting to conduct disgraceful in a professional respect. In
the event of disciplinary proceedings being brought in respect
of tail docking, it shall be open to the RCVS by evidence to prove,
and to the Disciplinary Committee on such evidence to find, that
any therapeutic or prophylactic justification advanced for the
docking in question is without substance. If such a finding is
made, the Disciplinary Committee may proceed to consider and to
decide whether in the circumstances the veterinary surgeon who
undertook that docking knew, or ought to have known, that such
purported justification is without substance.
6. For the avoidance of any doubt, any instance
of tail docking which is found to have been undertaken for reasons
which were not truly therapeutic or prophylactic will necessarily
constitute an unacceptable mutilation of the dog, which, if carried
out by a veterinary surgeon who knew or ought to have known of
the lack of true justification
November 2005
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