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| Yes | 68% | 366 votes | Total: 535 votes | |
| No | 32% | 169 votes |
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Add to FavoritesCropping a dog's ears should become illegal in the United States. Ear cropping is already illegal in most European countries and in Australia, Israel and Brazil. In those countries, ears can only be cropped by a veterinarian for a sound medical reason like frostbite and not just for sake of fashion or to win a dog show. There is no difference in cropping puppies' ears or foot-binding in young girls.
Unnecessary Surgery
No matter what species you are, you shouldn't cut off part of your body or open it up with a knife just for the heck of it. In any operation - cosmetic or medical - the body is exposed to serious, often lethal bacteria. Bacteria lives on the skin all of the time, waiting for a chance to get inside the body. If the body is also very young, overly stressed, and is also opened to the air, then infection is almost inevitable.
Ear cropping, even when done under anesthesia, is still unnecessary surgery. It does not give the dog any evolutionary advantage to have pointy ears rather than floppy or semi-floppy ones. Cropping is done to appease human fashion standards and for no other reason. Cropping also costs a lot of money - especially if it there is an infection.
What About Tradition?
The American Kennel Club condones both cruel practices of tail docking and ear cropping because it says that both are in "keeping with the breed's tradition". Bull baiting used to be a tradition involving dogs, and that's been banned. Keeping blacks as slaves used to be a fine old Southern tradition and even the fashion-blind, money-hungry AKC would agree that we shouldn't bring back slavery just because it was a "tradition".
Some proponents of ear-cropping in America state that dog owners should always have a right to choose whether to crop their dog's ears or not. Although dogs are legally classified as property, they are considered family members to people who really love dogs. Dog owners do not have the right to put a dog through unnecessary surgery just a parents do not have the right to put their kids through unnecessary cosmetic surgery.
Breeds With Pointy Ears
There are dogs that are born with naturally pointy ears. These breeds include the Basengi, the West Highland White Terrier, the Scottie, the Cairn Terrier, the Pembroke Welsh Corgi, the Cardigan Welsh Corgi, the Siberian Husky, the Alaskan Malamute and the Manchester Terrier. And, of course there are many mutts with naturally pointy ears, or possess one floppy ear and one pointy ear.
If you do see a dog with cropped ears, don't assume that the owner is cruel. The owner could have rescued the dog after the ears were cropped. The dog could've had frost bite. Or, the owner could be ignorant and enslaved to current fashion trends in the dog show world. The best way to make ear cropping illegal is to never get your dog's ears cropped.
Learn more about this author, Rena Sherwood.
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No
For many people, the idea of cropping a dog's ear is a heinous abuse of human power, and nothing more than a painful procedure to appease the dog owner's aesthetic vanity. I say to these people, learn what you are opposing before you oppose it.
Some breeds of dogs have very heavy ears that, if not cropped, will cause serious pain throughout the dog's life. The delicate stabilizing bones of the dog's ear can break, repeatedly, from nothing more than a gentle jostling of the head. Cropping the ears of these dogs is acceptable and humane, and it would be inhumane to leave them natural.
Much of the time, however, a dog's ears are cropped for breed-specific aesthetics. A good breeder or owner will have their dog's ears cropped when they are still very young puppies, usually right at the time they receive their first round of puppy-shots. While the procedure does cause some discomfort, puppies are like young children in that they quickly recover and forget any pain endured. In this type of situation, cropping a puppy's ears is absolutely no different than a parent having a baby's ears pierced.
In fact, that is the perfect parallel to ear-cropping. If you would have your child's ears pierced, at any age, then you would willingly inflict pain upon your child. If that child is too young to have any idea what earrings are, much less to request having it done, then you are inflicting your personal aesthetic preferences upon a helpless child, without caring about the pain it causes them. Babies cry when their ears are pierced. Moms hold them up and let a jewelry-store attendant hold piercing guns to either side of their child's head, and shove metal posts into their earlobes, despite the child's inevitable pain and screams.
My schnauzer's ears are cropped, and have been since he was old enough to get his puppy shots. I did not have them done, the woman from whom I purchased him did. Would I have done it myself? Probably not, but only because it likely would not occur to me. Do I mind that it's done? Absolutely not. My dog has never, for a single moment, displayed any angst over having cropped ears. He does not gaze into a mirror with longing regret, nor does he flinch in terror whenever I pet his ears. His ears are easier to clean, are more likely to ward off infection and ear mites, and just look darn cute.
By the way, I also have had my ears pierced since five weeks of age. I don't resent my mother for that, I've experienced no ill effects, and according to everyone who saw me, I was a perfectly happy, bouncing baby within twenty minutes of having them pierced. If society isn't willing to throw my mom in the clink for having metal posts fired into my earlobes, then those folks who choose to appropriately crop a dog's ears shouldn't either.
Learn more about this author, Hope Darby.
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