Oktoberfest, and Dog Cropping

Ok, so next weekend is the last weekend of Oktoberfest, and some people are trying to organize a trip to Munich to experience it. The trouble is, we originally thought it was 50£ for the flight, but we were looking at the wrong dates and it's actually between 100 - 150£ just to get over there. Bit steep for one weekend. We'll see how it goes.

The other thing I wanted to write on: European dogs! Cropping and docking are both illegal in Europe. Docking is the amputation of the animal's tail, whether surgically or by constriction (essentially leaving a tight rubber band on until the tail falls off). Cropping is the surgical alteration of the animal's ears, where a small bit of skin is removed and the ears are physically "trained" to stand upright. Both procedures are widely practiced in America and numerous other countries. In the U.S., Dobermans are pretty much always cropped and docked, Boxers docked and occasionally cropped, and Great Danes sometimes cropped but never docked. Pit bulls, when they are done, are often given extremely short crops, while Great Danes are generally given long "show crops."

Every time I visit Europe, I always get a jolt from seeing all the Rotties and Boxers with long tails. Still, they look just fine au naturale, most dogs. There isn't a whole lot of compelling logic behind continuing the procedures; it mostly comes down to tradition. Dogs were originally cropped and docked so that when guarding the home or fighting, their ears and tails weren't vulnerable to getting ripped by the intrudor/other animal.

But there's a hitch for me in totally writing off cropping and docking as cruel and unnecessary: I think Dobermans look so much better with it done! Every other breed looks ok or even better to me with its ears and tail intact, but when the Doberman is left natural to me it just doesn't look...well...like a Doberman. It looks like a hound, which is just all wrong! It's a quandry, because I hope to own a Dobe one day, and then I'll be faced with the choice of whether or not to get my own pup done.

Ok, here are some pics. I'm sure I'll need to do another post, to showcase all the breeds I wanted to.

Cropped pit bull. Hate pittie crops, they're so severe.


Natural pit. I notice that there are a LOT of pit bulls in Oxford. It warms my heart, because they're all actually the correct size and their owners seem to generally be sweet older couples or families with kids, not "thugs." Thanks to the moronic gangster image of pits in the States, people there breed pitbulls that are WAY too wide and too heavy for the breed standard. They look like hippos compared to lovely dogs here.


American docked Rottweiler.


European undocked Rottweiler.