Declawing? Pet Centers?

[Saracirce]

Where Jazi and I live, most breeders have the dewclaws removed when the puppies are 3 days old and they remove even the normal ones. The puppies are too young at that time, imo, to say whether or not they're well formed. And I've seen people rant about dogs injuring their normal dewclaws and then calling the breeder a bad breeder. Which is very ignorant of them to say, particularly if they don't know the dog/breeder.

[SydneyandStorm]

Exactly, Jazi. It can be done, but you have to know how to separate them. The smart thing for her to have done would have been to throw a towel of blanket over one of them to separate them, or just give them a correction. It's like two guys at a bar, y'know? The fight just escalated through the roof when their friends try to hold them back.

I personally am impartial to dewclaws. If it's going to be done, though, it needs to be done young so that their skin can heal properly.

[Jazi]

Luckily there's growing noises here in America about how active dogs actually need their dewclaws. Lemme see if I can find the articles about them... I did finally find the lab one at least:

Lab/Chessie/Goldie retrieval video
Sporty dogs are not exempt, as you can see this vet has seen more injury to the wrist and leg in dogs without their dewclaws than dewclaw injuries in dogs with.

There was another one lurking on the dobe forum but I'm not sure where it got :T In any case, I'm an advocate for leaving dewclaws alone unless they are not properly formed and pose an actual threat to the dog's leg. Dewclaws like Sadies' last picture do look very dangerous to me.

Exactly, Jazi. It can be done, but you have to know how to separate them. The smart thing for her to have done would have been to throw a towel of blanket over one of them to separate them, or just give them a correction. It's like two guys at a bar, y'know? The fight just escalated through the roof when their friends try to hold them back.

I personally am impartial to dewclaws. If it's going to be done, though, it needs to be done young so that their skin can heal properly.

Investing in a break stick and taking some classes on how to separate fighting dogs and when to call a helper would have probably gone a long way as well. But you know, we'll never know if one just jumped her or if (the more likely situation) they redirected onto her after fighting amongst themselves. Either way it's a dangerous combo and I think a good lesson for young people who think they can prove decades and centuries of selective breeding wrong by owning way too many dogs with issues at once... or people thinking they're the next Ceasar Milan/Victoria Stilwell/Justin Silver and can have 20 DA dogs living peacefully with a snap of their fingers. What happened to her was tragic, but let's hope that people remember their limits from now on. There's a reason I'm not owning a male Dobe, a male GSD, and a male Chow at the same time.

[Sadies]

Yeah, it's really rare and weired her feet. I personally would get them taken off but they don't seem to care for pets well sadly (I'm not going into that).

Lol I see I get confused xD. I think dewclaws should stay unless they are like the floppy extra ones that have no purpose. I think the floppy ones should be taken off as they often incase they get caught on things so I think they are better removed Toshio them hurting.

[Bayleaf]

Random fact: Badgers get dewclaws too! I don't thing it really harms them, like dogs.

[Sadies]

Badgers are only declawed when they are used as bait for dog fights ect. It's a cruel sport like dog fighting. Badgers need their claws in the wild.

[Bayleaf]

I didn't think humans did stuff like that to badgers, of all animals.

[Sadies]

Yeah, it's illegal in most countries but it's called Badger baiting, basically like bear baiting but with terrier type dogs. It's cruel and illegal in the UK although it's not illegal to use dogs to kill them so people can get past the rules :(

[Bayleaf]

Aww, poor badgers.

[Buddy & Boonie]

New topic?