Today's Stories

March 17, 2009

Michael Hudson
Mr. Bernanke Spreads the Fire

Harry Browne
Ireland's Blast From the Past

Joanne Mariner
U.S. Human Rights Abuses in the War on Terror

Dean Baker
Getting Lehman Bros. Wrong ... Again

Peter Morici
Cuts for Autoworkers, Bonuses for Derivatives Traders

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Obama and the Empire

Richard Gott
Victory for the Left in El Salvador

Walter Brasch
Dog Mutilations vs. Cosmetics

March 16, 2009

Pam Martens
Has a Comedian Just Saved America?

Uri Avnery
The Rape of Washington

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Witness Protection Program

Ralph Nader
Americans Want Justice for Wall Street Crooks

Nikolas Kozloff
Down But Not Out: the Latin American Right

John Walsh
Redbaiting on the Left

Ron Jacobs
A Call for Common Sense

Binoy Kampmark
The Case of Tim K

Stephen Fleischman
Coxey's Army Will March Again!

Christian Christensen
A 25-Year Misunderstanding: Springsteen's "Born in the USA"

Scott Handleman
Shooting Tristan Anderson

Website of the Day
Clean, Green, Sustainable

March 13 / 15, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Parable of the Shopping Mall

Peter Lee
What the Chas Freeman Fight Was Really About

Diana Johnstone
NATO's Global Mission Creep

David Harvey
Is This Really the End of Neoliberalism?

Petrino DiLeo
Inside Obama's Housing Plan: Will Millions be Left Out in the Cold

David Ker Thomson
Tender to the Earth

Eric Ruder
Massacre in Slow Motion: an Interview with Haider Eid on Gaza

Fred Gardner
Cannabidiol Now!

David Yearsley
Music Torture

Saul Landau
How Israel Gives Jews a Bad Name

Laura Carlsen
Drug War Doublespeak

Robert Weissman
We Told You So

John Goekler /
Merle Lefkoff
The Struggle in Saffron

Tom Barry
Imprisoning Immigrants for Profit

Kathy Sanborn
Money Out of Thin Air

Chris Mobley / Leela Yellesetty
Criminalizing Poverty: the Jail Seattle Doesn't Need

David Michael Green
The Perils of Being Right and Wrong

Alan Maass /
Lee Sustar
A Socialist Moment?

Christopher Brauchli
Pity, the Poor Tax Collectors

Richard Morse
Clinton in Haiti

Lorenzo Wolff
Taking It From the Streets: From Springsteen to the Wu-Tang Clan

Poets' Basement
Springate and Johnston

Website of the Weekend
Hear the Buffalo

March 12 , 2009

Sharon Smith
Bottom Feeders at the Trough

Christopher Ketcham
Full Spectrum Penetration: Israeli Spying in the United States

Mike Whitney
Haircut Time for Bondholders

Ray McGovern
Obama Caves to the Lobby

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
The Doublespeak of a Discredited IMF

John Ross
The War is Not Over

M. Reza Pirbhai
Men in Black: Another View of Pakistan

Chris Floyd
Lost Liberty Blues: Prisons, Profits and the Banality of Evil

Steve Early
Why Labor Doesn't Need a "House of Lords"

Quentin Gee
Hiding the Costs of Coal

Website of the Day
Amadee Coral Reef: a Spherical Panorama

March 11 , 2009

Mike Roselle
From Birmingham to Coal River: Why is the Environmental Movement So Timid?

Paul Craig Roberts
The Criminal Injustice System

Henry A. Giroux
Academic Labor in Dark Times

Nikolas Kozloff
The Death Cries of the Salvadoran Right

Norm Kent
I am Patient Number 380206011

Mitu Sengupta
Reforming the World Bank: Different Image, Same Tune?

Ludwig Watzal
The Structure of Israel's Occupation

David Macaray
The Battle Over EFCA Has Begun

William S. Lind
Rounding Up the Usual Suspects

Martha Rosenberg
A Merger From the Folks Who Brought You Vytorin

Website of the Day
American Indicator: One in Fifty Kids are Homeless

March 10 , 2009

Franklin Spinney
What Israeli Peace Process?

Vijay Prashad
What Did Hillary Clinton Do?

Stan Cox
There's No Free Lunch on Your Browser: the Internet's Energy Drain

Zoltan Grossman
Coffee Strong: Listening to the G.I. Voice at Fort Lewis

Reuven Kaminer
Pure and Unadulterated Racism

Jonathan Cook
Memoricide in the West Bank

Dave Lindorff
Business Rules

Brian McKenna
How Anthropology Disparages Journalism

Harvey Wasserman
Is This the End of the Age of the Automobile?

Corey Pein
He Told You So

Website of the Day
AIG and Systemic Failure: $1.6 Trillion in Insured Deriviatives

March 9 , 2009

Pam Martens
Madoff and the Sorkin Affair

Ralph Nader
Too Big...Period

Peter Lee
Meet Gulbuddin Hekmatyar: the US's Worst/Best Hope for Afghanistan?

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Charade

Peter Morici
Fixing the Banks: Treasury's Doomed Strategy

Dean Baker
Why Do We Need a Private Health Insurance Industry, Anyway?

Steve Ault
Kiss Thailand's Tolerance for Gays Goodbye

Stephen Lendman
Guantánamo Under Obama

Farooq Sulehria
Tennis Without Spectators

Belén Fernández
Chávez, a Cockfight and the Caracazo

Website of the Day
How Lincoln Learned to Read

March 6-8 , 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Harlots High and Low

Chris Floyd
Tangled Up in Karl

Uri Avnery
Remember Ophira?

Dave Lindorff
Kiss the Banks Goodbye

Mark Weisbrot
The Crisis vs. the Dogma

David Ker Thomson
Against Work

Phil Aliff
Soldier Suicides

Rebekah Ward
Georgia Injustice: Another Young Life Wrecked

Tracey Briggs
How Capitalism Feels in the Head

Dean Baker
Depression Nostalgia?

Daniel P. Wirt, M.D.
Remove the Handle From the Health Insurance Misery and Death Pump

Carl Finamore
The Recovery Plan: Save Us From Those Who Would Save Us

Wajahat Ali
The Pakistani Monster

David Michael Green
Smart is the New Stupid

David Macaray
The Minimum Wage Revisited

Michael Dickinson
On Financial Fools Day

Susie Day
Line in the Sand

Bob Sommer
Echoes of the Townhouse Explosion

Ben Sonnenberg
No Forgiveness for the Bourgeoisie: Buñuel's "The Exterminating Angel"

David Yearsley
Sonic Fakery in "Slumdog" From the Mozart of Chennai

DC Larson
They're Writing Those Depression Songs, Again

Lorenzo Wolff
Live Truth: Music Sans Headphones

Poets' Basement
Dominquez, MacNeil and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Environment & Obama: a Conversation with Jeffrey St. Clair

March 5 , 2009

James G. Abourezk
This Time It's Mrs. Clinton's Turn

Kathleen and Bill Christison
U.S. Military Aid to Israel

Robert Weissman
Wall Street's Best Investment: Paying for Public Policy

Patrick Cockburn
My Day at the Terror "Charity"

William Blum
Being Serious About Torture...Or Not

Robert Fantina
From Iraq to Afghanistan: Augmentation All Over Again

Saul Landau
The Unseen Crisis

Benjamin Dangl
Striking a Blow Against the Beer Cartel: a Grassroots Victory in Utah

Christopher Brauchli
The New Leaders of the GOP

Website of the Day
The Angola 3: 36 Years of Solitude

March 4, 2009

Marjorie Cohn
Blueprints for a Police State

Mike Whitney
Blowing Up the Economy: How Securitization Lit the Fuse

Ron Jacobs
The Banality of Occupation: the Rand Papers

Ashley Smith
War by Another Name

Joanne Mariner
Obama's War on Terror

Dan Bacher
The California Water Wars: Why It's Not a Conflict Between Fish and People

Mark Engler
Will the Winds of Change Reach El Salvador?

Franklin Lamb
"What's Hezbollah Done for Us Lately?"

Cal Winslow
Slugging It Out in California

David Mandelzys
Apartheid Week

Website of the Day
Guantánamo: the Definitive Prisoner List

March 3, 2009

Conn Hallinan
Ethnic Cleansing and Israel

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Long, Dark Night of Pakistan

Brian M. Downing
The Changing Game in Afghanistan

Robert Larson
External Damnation: Companies are Designed for Destruction

Daniel P. Wirt, MD
Single-Payer Health Reform

Russell Mokhiber
Burn Your Health Insurance Bill!

William Loren Katz
Obama, One Ape and Two Newspapers

Kathy Sanborn
The Lazy Man's Guide to the Economic Crisis

Pauline Imbach
A New Start for the World Social Forum?

Christopher Ketcham
The Best Journalism You'll Write is Priceless

Website of the Day
The Surveillance Self-Defense Project

March 2, 2009

Andrea Peacock
A Poisoned Town's Shot at Justice

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's Budget

Peter Lee
Pakistan Lurches Toward the Abyss

John Blair
Locking Down Big Coal

Peter Morici
Treasury's Flawed Plan for Citigroup

Uri Avnery
10 Ways to Kill Fatah

Michael Donnelly
Resistance to the War on the Wild

Fred Gardner
The Judge Who Ruled Marijuana is Medicine

Sonia Nettnin
Middle East Medical Mission Heroes

Andrew Lehman
A New Deal for the Web

Website of the Day
Pentagon Papers II?

Feb. 27 - March 1, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Is Nancy Pelosi Really Against War Crimes?

Harry Browne
Where the Cheats Have No Shame

Anthony DiMaggio
From Bush to Obama: Seven Years of Wartime Propaganda

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Dennis Ross and Iran: the Fox and the Chicken Coop

Mischa Gaus
The Banks' War on Workers

Felice Pace
The Economy and the Big Picture

Mike Whitney
Is Free Market Capitalism Possible Without Accountability?

Lee Sustar
Blaming the Autoworkers

Peter Lee
The Other Side of the Coin in Afghanistan

Nicole Colson
Ruining Young Lives for Profit

Roger Burbach
Et Tu, Daniel? The Betrayal of the Sandinista Revolution

Rannie Amiri
King Abdullah Has No Robes

Missy Beattie
Owning Disaster

Dave Lindorff
America's Stupid Health Care Debate

Robert David Steele Vivas
Intelligence for the President--and Everyone Else

John Ross
Teotihuacan Gets Mickey-Moused

Ralph Nader
Civic Heroism Awards

Yves Engler
Haiti's Harsh Realities

Alan Farago
The Story of Leonard Abess, Banker

Zulfikar Majid
Understanding Kashmir

David Yearsley
Don't Stay Up Too Late, Johan!

Charles R. Larson
Sleeping with Dogs

Kim Nicolini
Spitting at Dark Times: Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky"

Lorenzo Wolff
So You Wanna Be a Garage Rock Star

Poets' Basement
Puthoff, Payne, Gaffney and Gray

Website of the Weekend
Sleep Now in the Fire

February 26, 2009

Dave Lindorff
Obama's Address to Congress

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Military Mephistopheles

Patrick Cockburn
Did the US Learn Anything in Iraq?

Mike Whitney
The Geithner Put

Eamonn McCann
"Make Bono Pay Tax"

Tim Wise
Eric Holder and the Whitewashing of Racism

Tom Barry
Napolitano's Hard Line

Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Excellent Atomic Omission

Adam Turl
The Enemies of Unions and the Lies They Tell

David Macaray
When People are Fired Illegally

James McEnteer
Rush to the Rescue: Limbaugh's Secret Plan to Save the Economy

Website of the Day
The Carbon Casino

February 25, 2009

Chris Sands
Afghanistan: Chaos Central

M. Shahid Alam
Israel in 1948: Poised for Expansion

Chris Floyd
Obama's Non-Withdrawal Withdrawal Plan

Dave Lindorff
Wall Street and Bernanke: the Blind Leading the Blind

Norman Solomon
The Slow Pullout Method

Rachel Godfrey Wood
Neoliberals Do The Amazon

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Teacher and Student: the New Class Struggle

Ron Jacobs
It Ain't Over Till It's Over

Nadia Hijab
The First Waltz

Dennis Loo
The Water Line

Website of the Day
Hitchens Gets Stomped by Syrian Nerd

February 24, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
How the Economy was Lost

Uri Avnery
Coalition Theory

Peter Morici
Is Nationalization Inevitable?

Jonathan Cook
Arab Parties Face Most Hostile Knesset in History

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
The Man Who Shouldn't be King (of Afghanistan)

Andy Worthington
Who is Binyam Mohamed?

Brian Horejsi
Crisis Creates Hope for Reality

Julia Stein
I was a Writer for the Government

Norm Kent
How Judges Disgrace the Bench

Rachel Smolker /
Brian Tokar
Biofuels, Promise or Threat?

Dennis Loo
The Water Line: Doing What Must be Done

James McEnteer
The Oscar for Denial

Website of the Day
How to Destroy a Fox News Anchor

February 23, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Language of Looting

Mike Roselle
On Cherry Pond: Going Up Against Big Coal in W. Virginia

Patrick Cockburn
The New War in Iraq

Franklin Spinney
Obama Steps on the Pentagon Escalator

Einar Már Guðmundsson
A War Cry From the North

Ralph Nader
How Credit Unions Survived the Crash

Jordan Flaherty
A New Orleans Intifada?

Helen Redmond
Ted's Table: Kennedy and the Corporate Lobbyists Craft a Health Plan

Dennis Loo
The Water Line

Harvey Wasserman
Jet Crashes and Nuclear Reactors: Feds Ignore a Serious Risk

Terry Lodge
The Intelligence is Wrong

Website of the Day
BadCreditReport.Com

February 20 / 22, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Lawyer's Tale

Michael Neumann /
Osha Neumann
Remove Our Grandmother's Name from the Wall at Yad Vashem

Ismael Hossein-zadeh
Herbert Hoover Copycats

Paul Craig Roberts
Bill of Rights Under Fire

Linn Washington Jr.
The NY Post's Chimpanzee Cartoon

Saul Landau
On the Road Again

Marjorie Cohn
War Criminals Must be Prosecuted (And Their Lawyers Too)

Binoy Kampmark
Cricket and Cartels: the Fall of Sir Allen Stanford

Dave Lindorff
Using the Recession to Hammer Workers

David Yearsley
Edward Said's Greatest Musical Writings

David Macaray
A Closer Look at the Employee Free Choice Act

James McEnteer
Last Mambo in Minnehaha

Rick Salutin
A Canadian Looks at Obama

Wayne Clark
South Carolina Nears the Abyss

Richard Rhames
Got Farms?

Stephen Martin
Silver Mist Descending

Mitu Sengupta
Slumdog Millionaire's Dehumanizing View of India's Poor

Charles R. Larson
Slumdog Reality?

Richard Morse
Carnival Ramble in Haiti

Lorenzo Wolff
Desperation in an Unavoidable Groove

Poets' Basement
Three Poems of Tu Fu (Trans. K. Rexroth)

Website of the Weekend
Ron Paul: What If the People Wake Up?

February 19, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
The Cleanser: Lobbyists Whistle Up Cordesman to "Prove" Israel Waged a Clean War in Gaza

Harry Browne
How Ireland Went Bust

Robert Bryce
Why the Promise of Biofuels is a Lie

Brian M. Downing
The Winding Road: From Western Europe to Kyrgyzstan

Fred Gardner
The DEA Chief's $123,000 Flight

Andy Worthington
Obama's Uighur Problem

Wajahat Ali
Aftermath of a Beheading

Laura Carlsen
A New Attitude at the White House Toward Bolivia and Venezuela?

Deb Reich
Gaza: Choose Life!

Christopher Ketcham
Crisis? What Crisis?

Website of the Day
Taking Back NYU

February 18, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
President of Special Interests

Mike Whitney
Trouble at Treasury

M. Shahid Alam
Afghan Pitfalls

Patrick Cockburn
A Real Surge at Last

Conn Hallinan
Death's Laboratory

Dave Lindorff
Whatever Happened to Antitrust?

Rannie Amiri
The Perils of Blogging in Egypt

Gareth Porter
Pushing Back Against Petraeus on Pullout Risks

Eric Hobsbawm
Remembering V. G. Kiernan

Christopher Brauchli
The Pope's Predicament

Martha Rosenberg
It's the Cymbalta Stupid

Website of the Day
Red Gold

February 17, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Oligarchs' Escape Plan

Mike Whitney
The Global Ditch

Ralph Nader
The One-Dimensional Congress

Joanne Mariner
Benchmarking Obama: How to Evaluate the New Administration's Counter-Terrorism Policies

John Ross
Commodifying the Revolution: Zapatista Villages Become Hot
Tourist Destinations

Belén Fernández
The Venezuelan Referendum From the Back of a Pickup Truck

Mats Svensson
Who is a Terrorist?

David Macaray
Why America Needs Labor Unions

Gregory Vickrey
$400 in Change

M. Junaid Levesque-Alam
Another Hamastan?

Michael Dickinson
Unrest in Istanbul

Website of the Day
Take a Stand for Open Access

February 16, 2009

Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Reconstruction: the Greatest Fraud in US History?

Oscar Guardiola-Rivera
The Truth About Colombia's New Emperor

Paul Craig Roberts
Who Remembers Guns and Butter?

Uri Avnery
Livni's Bitter Options

P. Sainath
The Meltdown: Whose Crisis Is It?

Dedrick Muhammad / Michael Brown
White Recession, Black Depression

Carla Blank
A New New Deal for the Arts

Patrick Irelan
Venezuela Ends Term Limits

Dan Bacher
Is Delta Pumping Driving Salmon and Orca Decline?

Fidel Castro
Chavez's Clarion Call

Harvey Wasserman
Hail to the Spleef: Did George Washington Smoke Pot?

Website of the Day
Mining Black Mesa

February 13 - 15, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
On the Rocks

Joshua Frank
The Myth of Clean Coal

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Coming Out Party

George Ciccariello-Maher
Venezuela's Term Limits: More Hypocrisy From the NYT

Nikolas Kozloff
Venezuela Beyond the Referendum

Brian M. Downing
Pakistan on the Brink

Paul Craig Roberts
Deficit Nonchalance

Christopher Ketcham
Israel's Ball Boys

Ron Jacobs
At a Campus Sit-In Against Israeli Occupation

Dave Lindorff
Why Can Judd Gregg See What Obama Can't?

Alan Maass
Lincoln at 200

Chuck Spinney
Grassley Sounds Off on Obama's Man at the Pentagon

Phil Gasper
Mr. Darwin's Reluctant Revolution

Stephen Lendman
A Short History of Business Handouts

Charles Thomson
Tate Cruises: Caveat Emptor on the High Seas

Kathy Sanborn
The Suicide Rush

Saul Landau
Bowled Over

Len Wengraf
The Nightmare in Somalia

Harvey Wasserman
Striking a Blow Against Nuclear Power

David Macaray
An Easy Call for Obama on Joining a Union

Tom Stephens
Four Freedoms, Four Changes

Seth Sandronsky
Lincoln and the Collective Mind

David Yearsley
On the Road Again

Lorenzo Wolff
Freaking Out With Danny Barnes

Kim Nicolini
The Body of the Worker: What "The Wrestler" Says About the State of America

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Buknatski and French

Website of the Weekend
The Iranian Revoution and the US Dual Containment Policy: a Presentation

Happy St. Patrick's Day!
March 17, 2009

The Painful Cost of Breed Standards

Dog Mutilations vs. Cosmetics

By WALTER BRASCH

Legislatures in Pennsylvania and Illinois are considering bills that would reduce or eliminate what animal welfare advocates call mutilations, and what breeders and American Kennel Club (AKC) call “breed standards.” Because dogs are considered by state laws to be property, individual owners may currently cut and shape dogs’ ears (cropping) or amputate part or all of their tails (docking), often without a proper sterile environment or anesthesia.

Ear cropping and tail docking, according to the AKC, are “acceptable practices integral to defining and preserving breed standards, enhancing good health, and preventing injuries.” Of 158 pure-bred breeds recognized by the AKC, about 50 kennel clubs have “breed standards” that require or strongly suggest tail docking or ear cropping. The AKC claims standards are established by individual clubs—all of which deduct points for dogs that don’t conform to their “standards”—and that the AKC has no restrictions to register or to show a dog. The Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI), which includes national kennel clubs of 84 nations, forbids cropping and docking of rottweilers and other breeds. The AKC is not a member of the FCI.

A caudectomy (commonly known as docking) usually occurs between one and four days after birth by placing a ligature over the dog’s tail and cutting off the blood supply. The tail falls off within three days. The tail can also be cut off by using clippers or surgical scissors. Among breeds that are commonly docked by breeders and those involved in the showdog industry are airedales, Australian shepherds, boxers, dobermans, mastiffs, poodles, Old English sheepdogs, pinschers, pointers, rottweilers, schnauzers, spaniels, terriers, and Welsh corgis.

A pinnectomy (commonly known as cropping) requires cutting parts of ears to reshape the structure, usually resulting in ears that are more pointed and which stand up against the head. Among breeds that often have cropped ears are boxers, dobermans, Great Danes, rottweilers, schnauzers, and terriers.

Persons engaged in illegal dog fighting or the drug industry, especially those who own pit bulls, will often crop and dock their dogs to establish not only a more fierce appearance but also to reduce the possibility that other dogs can use the ears and tails as points of attack. “I have seen some really bad cropping,” says Adam Goldfarb of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). The cropping, usually done by owners with minimal training, often leaves ears “mangled, misshapen, or almost as buds on the head,” says Goldfarb.

Proposed legislation in Pennsylvania would require that only veterinarians would be allowed to dock tails after five days; ears could not be cropped until puppies are at least 12 weeks old. Breeders may still dock tails when a puppy is no more than five days old. The bill was unanimously passed in the House and is currently in the Senate agriculture committee. Proposed legislation in Illinois would ban all cropping and docking except for medical necessity. That bill is waiting a second reading in the Senate. The Illinois bill, submitted by Sen. Terry Link, majority caucus whip, “has had its struggles” because of the AKC opposition, according to Ron Holmes, communications specialist in the Senate. The bill, says Holmes, “represents “humanity versus cosmetics.” The AKC was largely responsible for the defeat of bills in California, New York, and Vermont during the past four years. Because the proposed Pennsylvania legislation still allows docking and cropping, the AKC has been relatively quiet in Pennsylvania, according to Sarah Speed of the Humane Society of the United States. Opposition, she says, is being mounted in the rural areas and by breeders.

Breeders, as well as official policies of AKC and the Council for Docked Breeds (CDB), an international organization based in England, claim there is no pain when puppies have their tails amputated shortly after birth.

“It is painful,” counters Dr. Barbara Hodges, consulting veterinarian for the Humane Society Veterinarian Medical Association (HSVMA). It is not accepted veterinarian practice “that puppies experience less pain than adult dogs,” she says. Amputation “of any body part of any living being will certainly elicit a pain response from the nervous system, even at two or three days,” Hodges explains, noting that a recently-born puppy “may simply not be able to express this pain in the same manner that an older puppy would.”

There is significant pain when ears are cut, shaped, and then bandaged for several months to assure they meet “breed standards.” In veterinarians’ clinics, the surgery is done under general anesthesia, usually when the dog is between 10 and 14 weeks old. The ears are taped to a rack to keep the ears firm, and stay bandaged three to six weeks. A second surgery to again reshape the ears that do not conform to breed specifications may also be necessary. The “risk of anesthesia for a cosmetic procedure makes no sense whatsoever to put an animal at risk for blood loss or infection unless you are achieving some improvement in their health,” says Hodges.  

The Australian Veterinarian Association emphasizes, “While young animals cannot express pain the same way as adult humans do, anatomical studies indicate that they are superbly capable of feeling pain, and biochemical studies show that they do suffer short- and long-term effects from surgery.” The AVMA policy is, “It is not currently accepted that puppies experience less pain than adults.”

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in England has ruled these procedures are unethical and “an unjustified mutilation” when done for cosmetic reasons. England bans docking and cropping except by veterinarians and only for medical necessity. The 39-member Council of Europe Convention opposes docking and cropping, and about 30 countries ban these procedures as unjustified mutilation. The World Small Animal Veterinary Association, the American Animal Hospital Association, and the 76,000-member American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) oppose docking or cropping for cosmetic reasons. In 1976, the AVMA had asked the AKC to eliminate ear crops as part of its standards. In 1986, it asked the AKC to “change breed and show standards.” In 1999, with breeders and the AKC ignoring previous requests, the AVMA condemned the practice for cosmetic reasons as “cruel and barbaric [and] not medically indicated nor of benefit to the patient.” The AVMA suggested that veterinarians “should counsel dog owners against such procedures.” Then, in November 2008, the AVMA issued a short, terse policy statement, based upon extensive analysis of scientific literature and available clinical information: “The AVMA opposes ear cropping and tail docking of dogs when done solely for cosmetic purposes. The AVMA encourages the elimination of ear cropping and tail docking from breed standards.” Surprisingly, there wasn’t significant public opposition. “A substantial proportion” of comments “were supportive,” says Dr. Gail C. Golab, director of the AVMA’s Animal Welfare Division.

Both the AKC and CDB, as well as individual breeders, mounted heavy opposition. The CDB, like thousands of breeders, claims that because certain breeds were bred with little attention to “tail length, shape or carriage,” if the breeds were not docked, “it is unlikely that the best dogs would carry good tails . . . breeders would therefore be left with a diminished number of suitable sires and dams [and] the genetic pool would be reduced, greatly increasing the risk of hereditary disease taking hold [and] some breeds could even disappear for ever.” There have “never been any reputable trials that could even remotely claim” such practices are beneficial to dogs, according to the Australian Veterinary Association.           

Docking was once believed to prevent rabies and injuries associated with hunting and fighting. In England, tails were routinely docked to avoid a general tax upon working dogs with tails. Parliament repealed the tax in 1796.

In seventeenth and early eighteenth century America, paranoid Puritans believed dogs’ tails were possessed by demons, and cut them off. In some countries, tails were docked because dogs “have to hunt game through heavy vegetation and thick brambles, where their fast tail action can easily lead to torn and bleeding tails which are painful and extremely difficult to treat,” according to the CDB. The CDB claims that even non-working breeds “which have an enthusiastic tail action are also liable to damage their tails,” even if they only “work” at home.

“Nonsense,” says Hodges. “Severe tail injuries are extremely rare,” she says, “and proper medical treatment can usually benefit the few dogs that do sustain such injuries.” In contrast to AKC and breeder claims that docking is somehow beneficial, Hodges points out that dogs with amputated tails can develop painful nerve scar tissue or neuromas, similar to what humans develop when a limb is amputated. Veterinarians and animal behaviorists recognize that the tail helps a dog to balance and, more importantly, to communicate with other animals and humans. Among water dogs, the tail also acts as a rudder. “When we see animals,” says Hodges, “we look at their body language, and we can learn a lot about them from seeing how they move their ears and tail.”

The CDB also says “long haired, thick coated breeds . . . are docked to avoid the hair around the base of the tail becoming fouled by faeces.” It claims, “even with constant grooming and washing, such fouling is unpleasant. If allowed to get out of hand, it can lead to severe problems of hygiene, or even flystrike and subsequent infestation by maggots.” However, large-tailed dogs, including German shepherds and collies, have no difficulty figuring out how to avoid hygiene problems.

Cropping minimizes ear infections, avoids later ear injuries, or improves hearing, according to both the AKC and the CDB. “There is no evidence that cropping prevents or successfully treats these conditions,” according to the AVMA.” A major study of almost 17,000 dogs in Germany revealed there is no evidence that ear cropping reduces ear infections. Animals which develop ear infections, says Hodges, “can easily be treated medically, with far less trauma than cropping.” If the AKC is so worried about ear infections, asks Hodges, “then why does it forbid cropping as a breed standard for cocker spaniels, which have the highest number of ear infections?” AKC breed standards also dictate against cropping the ears of bloodhounds, basset hounds, and beagles, all of which have floppy ears. The AKC argument is further spurious, says Hodges, “because breed standards dictate the cropping of breeds that have only rare instances of ear infection.”

In a lame attempt to try to relate docking and cropping to patriotism, the AKC issued an official statement in February 2009: “These breed characteristics are procedures performed to insure the safety of dogs that on a daily basis perform heroic roles with Homeland Security, serve in the U.S. Military and at Police Departments protecting tens of thousands of communities throughout our nation as well as competing in the field. Mislabeling these procedures as ‘cosmetic’ is a severe mischaracterization that connotes a lack of respect and knowledge of history and the function of purebred dogs.”

“Ridiculous,” says Ron Aiello, executive director the United States War Dogs Association, composed of former and current military dog handlers. “I don’t know where they [AKC] are coming up with this,” he says, noting “there is no absolutely no purpose for clipping a dog’s ears or tail.” Most military dogs are German shepherds, Belgian malinois, or Labradors, none of which have their ears cropped or tails docked. “We have dogs who have their ears pointed, and some whose ears are naturally floppy,” says the former combat Marine, who points out, “Our dogs all have their tails. It doesn’t affect their hygiene or abilities.”

Capt. Kenneth O’Brien, commander of the Philadelphia Police Department K9 unit, agrees. “There is absolutely no need whatsoever to crop or dock dogs” except for medical necessity, says O’Brien. The Philadelphia police have 30 dogs, most of them German shepherds; a few dogs had one or both ears that were floppy. “It never affected their abilities or hygiene,” says O’Brien, who emphasizes that breed standards are “nothing more than cosmetic” and have nothing to do with hygiene or preventive treatment.

Docking and cropping may eventually be eliminated in the United States if states pass legislation that bans the procedures except for medical necessity, and then only by veterinarians. “The vast majority of veterinary students say they don’t want to perform these procedures,” says Hodges. The procedures remain in surgery textbooks for medical reasons, she says, “and not because of the desire to help perpetuate breed standards.” Emi Eaton, president of the Student AVMA, agrees. In a statement issued shortly after the AMVA policy issued its policy against docking and cropping, Eaton noted, “Many of the younger student body are behind ear cropping and tail docking only for medical reasons.”

If humans want to bob their noses, augment their breasts, pierce their bodies, or enter any of several thousand beauty and “fitness” contests, it’s their decision. But, to subject a dog to butchery because of imperious “breed standards” and pseudo-medical beliefs is nothing less than cruelty, and must be condemned.

Walter Brasch is the author of Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush.

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