BSAVA Docking Questionnaire Results

The following questionnaire was sent to 3300 UK members of the British Small Animal Veterinary Association. Up to 10/03/92, 2214 replies were received (67%) at which point the results were collated. In the preamble to the questions, comment on the incidence of tail injury, especially in normally docked breeds was requested.

		Yes	No	%Yes	%No
1	Do you dock the tails of puppies	966	1248	44	56
2	Do you think that docking the tails of breeds at present docked should continue?	216	1998	10	90
3	Do you believe that the non therapeutic docking of tails should be banned?	2044	170	92	8
4	If yes to 3, is your main argument
i)	welfare	244		12
ii)	mutilation	285		14
iii)	i & ii	1343		66
iv)	other	164		8
5	Would you agree with a docking ban imposed by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons	1985	256	88	12

The BSAVA survey was only sent to the 3300 UK BSAVA members. The BVA Annual Report 1993, states that at the time, there were 8141 Veterinary Surgeons in General Practice, in Wholetime Appointment within the UK.

The 1998 vets who stated that docking should not continue, were therefore not a majority, but represented just 25% of all UK practice vets.

If you take ALL members of the Profession, i.e. those in Government Service, Universities, Research and "Others" you come to a total of 16066 vets, less 2796 Overseas, less 1976 retired, less 1490 in the Republic of Ireland equals 9804. The 1998 vets now only represents 20% of all UK vets.

A sobering thought considering the fact that those against tail docking use this survey in an attempt to persuade us that the majority of Veterinary Surgeons support the RCVS aim of banning tail docking completely.

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