Help!! Should I dock my Pembroke puppies tails?

Hello everyone,

I know it is late to be thinking of this as I have six, beautiful, two day old AKC Registrable Pembrokes <3 Mom & pups are doing great :) I had planned all along to dock their tails to the breed standard. Now they are here & I have fallen in love with their little tails! I have one day to decide what to do! I don't want to hurt them :( I don't want Adella to hate me for hurting her pups :(

I have done tons of research & work closely with Adella's breeder. She docks her puppies tails, not to conform with breed standard but to prevent infections later in life. Evidently, they like to curl their tails around their body & are prone to be not very clean.

Does anybody have any experience with pems with tails? Any advice? I don't know what to do!?

Thanks, will post pictures soon :)

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Actually, according to The New Complete Pembroke Welsh Corgi, it was originally done to distinguish Pems from Cardis.  Way back when they first started showing them, both breeds were shown together so when they separated into separate breeds I guess that was the only way they could tell them apart.  Nowadays it's pretty easy... if you know what to look for that is.

Really? Seems easy to me XD haha but this is the day and age of the internet haha so... information is readily available. It's interesting, I love this website I learn a lot :)

I know quite a few people here who don't know the difference but they hardly ever see Corgis.  Actually I've never seen a Cardi around here but Pems are getting a bit more popular.

I came across this bit of info while looking into known genetic diseases in corgis and wonder whether this is what Melissa's mentor was talking about when she said having a tail could cause issues.

Details of Bob-tail trait in Pembroke Welsh Corgi

 

Comments

Bobbed tail varying from 5 to 15cm. In boxer x corgi crosses and F2 this phenotype segregates as dominant, but associated with a recessive lethal. (Also recessive lethal in mice). In pure-bred corgis, two live born homozygous animals were tailless, had ano-rectal atresia and multiple spinal defects.

Inheritance

Autosomal dominant. Individuals carry heterozygously a mutation (C295G; gves Ile63Met) of the T (brachyury) gene giving loss of DNA binding of the T protein. Homozygous lethal.

http://www.vet.cam.ac.uk/idid/

This has nothing to do with infection from a tail being "dirty", which was the "breeder's" reason for docking. What you have pasted talks about genetic defects caused by breeding two homozygous tailless animals, usually seen in the spine.

Yes, I get that. I was just curious since Melissa stated that her mentor was into genetics and dealt with a corgi with a natural bob-tail. I happened on that information yesterday and wondered whether the breeder had a somewhat better reason for docking than the one she gave about "dirty" tails causing infections.

On another note, I would say to keep the tails, if they are going to be family pets, then there really isn't a need to have them docked.

I wish I could have gone in contact with Tomahawk's breeder a day earlier than I originally did because by that time she had already done the deed.

I don't pretend to understand this person's reasons for docking. To say that it's for anything other than purely cosmetic purposes in this day and age is really fooling only themselves. I'm still puzzled over a lot of things that went into this breeding.

I am trying to understand why this breeder would come to believe that docking is necessary for health reasons.  I am always curious to understand the beliefs and reasons people make for actions that are pointless. I do not condone docking for any reason, but that doesn't mean I am unwilling to open myself up to other view points on the issue.

Many people have stated good points about why the breeding may not have been the best idea, and it has been interesting to read all of them and see where everyone stands.

Melissa, I hope all goes well with your pups. I'm sure they will be beautiful with whatever decision you make regarding their tails.

If you want to learn more about this issue, this website [warning: graphic content] looks into the bobtailed breeding ethics pretty thoroughly.

It's like aussies, if you breed 2 merles with blue eyes you get a blind puppy, it's weird how that works, you wouldn't think it would do damage at all, let alone that much damage.
Thanks for posting! Interesting read!

Not just in Aussies, the merle gene in general! There are still people who do MM crosses (that is, merle x merle) but they have to be ready to deal with the ramifications that could bring.

I wish this website had like buttons so I didn't have to comment to let people know I agree with/like what they said lol.  *like* haha.

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