EAR CROPPIING, TAIL DOCKING & DEWCLAWS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
by
Wendy Wallner, DVM
Whirlwind BoxersQ. Should I have my puppy's ears cropped?
Whether or not to have the ears cropped is a personal decision that must be made by each individual owner. People are attracted to different breeds because of their unique appearances and cropped ears are often an important part of what people think a boxer should look like. Others may not want to risk anesthesia in their new puppy and be perfectly content with the softer look of pendulous ears. Although pendulous ears can have a higher incidence of ear infection, this is easily prevented with good hygiene and a preventive ear cleaning program as a part of routine grooming. The cost of ear cropping can range from around $80 to $200 depending on the locale and the reputation of the surgeon.
Aftercare adds more cost and many trips to the breeder or veterinarian for the taping procedure which "teaches" the ears to stand. Complications can include infection, improper taping (which can cause ear tips or whole ears to lose blood supply and slough or fall off), and failure to stand (caused by improper taping or inadequate taping, assuming the crop is a good one). A commitment must be made to follow the recommended taping procedures to achieve optimum results.
Q. Is ear cropping painful?
Individual dogs, like people have different levels of pain tolerance. In general, boxers are very pain tolerant and most puppies returning home from an ear crop will be eating normally and playing just as they did before surgery within hours of the procedure. Although the ears are decidedly uncomfortable if touched excessively or bumped, this discomfort usually subsides within a few days of surgery. Some veterinarians will offer pain medication for those individuals who seem to have a low pain tolerance. The skill and experience of the surgeon also have an effect on the discomfort level after the procedure.
Q. Is there a risk connected with cropping?
As with any surgical procedure that requires anesthesia, there is always a risk. With the newer anesthetic drugs and monitoring equipment that veterinarians have access to, these procedures are much safer than they were ten years ago. Each veterinarian and each hospital will have its own unique success/failure ratio. If you are concerned about anesthetic risk, it is not unreasonable to inquire about the type of anesthesia and monitoring that will be provided for your pet at the hospital you have selected. Ask the veterinarian who will perform the crop how many puppies he or she has lost as a result of ear cropping. (This is best done before scheduling the surgery appointment so that there is time to make a decision regarding the crop. It is very frustrating for busy surgeons who book surgeries weeks in advance to have half of the scheduled surgeries change their mind and walk out the door after arriving in the clinic on the appointed morning.)
Q. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the different anesthetics used in the cropping surgery?
There are almost as many different anesthetic regimens as there are veterinarians who crop ears. All have advantages and disadvantages and while one regimen is safe in one person's hands, it may not be safe in another's hands. The best anesthesia is usually what the individual veterinarian is most accustomed to using and most comfortable with.
My personal preference in young puppies is Ketamine and Valium for induction of anesthesia. Induction is the initial phase where the animal is given an intravenous drug which rapidly induces anesthesia so that its airway can be secured with an endotracheal tube. This combination wears off very rapidly (in about 5-15 minutes) so after the puppy is intubated it is placed on maintenance gas anesthesia with oxygen supplementation. My gas anesthetic of choice is isoflurane. It is also by far the most expensive gas anesthetic available. The reason that I prefer it is because the animal does not need to metabolize the drug to eliminate it from it's system. It need only breathe a few breaths of room air to exchange the gas in its lungs (and bloodstream) for room air and it wakes up. The less a drug has to be metabolized, the faster it wears off. Less than 1% of isoflurane is metabolized by the animal. This is important in a puppy who has an immature liver that is poorly equipped to handle the breakdown of anesthetic drugs. The disadvantage of using isoflurane (besides cost) is that because it wears off so fast, there is little to no analgesic activity once the puppy is awake.
Other induction agents used include barbiturates such as Thiopental. This is considered a short acting barbiturate. The duration of anesthesia is dose dependent and a typical induction dose would wear off in about 10 to 30 minutes in an adult dog. This drug tends to cause much more grogginess than the ketamine/valium post surgery. The reason for this prolonged recovery is that this drug is redistributed from the blood into fat. Since puppies have very little body fat for the drug to redistribute into, they tend to suffer from a prolonged recovery period when this class of drugs is used. Barbiturates should never be used in a puppy younger than 8 weeks of age. Barbiturates also have a depressing effect on respiration and heart rate.
Other gases used include halothane and methoxyflurane (metofane). Halothane was the gas of choice before isoflurane became available. It must be metabolized by the liver about 35% so it does not wear off as rapidly as isoflurane. Because of this, it provides slightly better pain relief in the immediate post operative period. It depresses the heart more than isoflurane and is more arrhythmogenic (apt to cause arrhythmias of the heart). It is 1/10 the cost of isoflurane. Methoxyflurane was used by many veterinarians for a long time. It is metabolized 52% and seems to last for "days" after the surgery. This is great for pain relief, but not so good for the liver. In short nosed dogs, it can also present a problem with the airway as it takes so long for them to wake up. It is a respiratory depressant.
Ether has not been used by most veterinarians since the 1950s when halothane and methoxyflurane became available. It is very irritating to the upper respiratory tract, but it does not depress the heart or respiration as much as halothane or methoxyflurane. It often causes post operative nausea and vomiting due to its effects on the gastrointestinal tract. It is extremely flammable. It is metabolized 15%.
* * * Special note: * * * There is one drug commonly used in anesthetic protocols that should not be used in the boxer. The drug is Acepromazine, a tranquilizer, which is often used as a preanesthetic agent. In the boxer it tends to cause a problem called first degree heart block, a potentially serious arrhythmia of the heart. It also causes a profound hypotension (severe lowering of the blood pressure) in many boxers that receive the drug. Recently on the Veterinary Information Network, a computer network for practicing veterinarians, an announcement was placed in the cardiology section entitled "Acepromazine and Boxers." This described several adverse reactions to the drug in a very short time span at a veterinary teaching hospital. All the adverse reactions were in boxers. The reactions included collapse, respiratory arrest, and profound bradycardia (slow heart rate, less than 60 beats per minute). The announcement suggested that acepromazine should not be used in dogs of the boxer breed because of a breed related sensitivity to the drug.
* * * WARNING: * * * This drug is the most commonly prescribed tranquilizer in veterinary medicine. It is also used orally and is prescribed for owners who want to tranquilize their dogs for air or car travel. I would strongly recommend that boxer owners avoid the use of this drug, especially when the dog will be unattended and/or unable to receive emergency medical care if it is needed.
For further informaiton please see Acepromazine
Q. How do I select a veterinarian for ear cropping?
The best way to choose a veterinarian to crop your dog's ears is to ask the advice of your breeder and several other people who have been through the procedure with their own dogs. Veterinarians who do many ear crops for breeders who show their dogs will be the most experienced. More experience means that your dog will get the best crop as atraumatically as possible and be under anesthesia for the least amount of time. Vets who crop ears regularly are also very familiar with the unique anesthetic needs of puppies. They will also be the best at providing the aftercare that is so important at creating the look that is desired. A perfect crop with improper aftercare will not give the desired result, nor will a bad crop with the best aftercare. Both are equally important in achieving a successful outcome.
(Unfortunately, there are people who have no business cropping ears, that continue to do so. These are the people who give cropping a bad name and cause pets unneccessary pain. I have seen the outcome of some of these crops. Sometimes, the wrong side of the ear has been cut off. Sometimes the ear has been taped so tightly that the entire ear has lost its blood supply and has died. I have seen infected ears from poor aftercare technique. I firmly believe that all of these mishaps could have been prevented if proper consideration had been given in choosing an experienced veterinarian whose special interest was ear cropping. Each owner of the animals mentioned above chose the veterinarian they did based solely on the cost of the procedure and not on the experience of the surgeon. Because ear cropping is an art as well as a surgical skill, it is not something that is done well by many otherwise skilled surgeons. The amount of money spent by the owners of the above pets to attempt to reconstruct the damaged ears far exceeded the initial savings that was realized by choosing the lowest priced crop. In many cases, the most experienced ear croppers prices lie somewhere in the middle of the range. The best is not necessarily the most expensive nor the least.)
Q. Should I restrict my puppy's activities after the surgery?
If your puppy comes home the day of surgery it will probably want to sleep until the anesthesia has completely worn off. The day following surgery and thereafter, it is not necessary to restrict the puppy's activity. The only restriction would be that the puppy should not be allowed to play with other dogs until the ears have healed. Other rambunctious puppies would tend to bite at the ears and could cause the sutures to be torn or the ear edges to bleed, not to mention the pain of having the newly cropped ears chewed on. While adult dogs have more sense, they also tend to have a nurturing drive which causes them to lick at the pup's ears excessively. This might impair healing or cause the ears to bleed.
Q. Is the taping procedure something I can do myself?
While many breeders and owners tape their own ears, I do not recommend it unless they are very experienced and have someone that can help restrain the dog. The best results will be obtained if the ears are taped by a person who has proven that he or she can achieve an erect ear in a very large number of the animals that he or she has taped. MOST OF THE DOGS IN THE SHOW RING HAVE EARS THAT DO NOT STAND PROPERLY!! Most of this is due to improper aftercare (taping). The aftercare is at least as important as the crop itself. Most of the ears that I see at some point require corrective taping, which is, as it sounds, a method of taping that corrects a specific problem. I may tape a dog's ears differently each time I see the dog depending on what the ears are doing. This results in the fastest possible finished product - - ears that stand perfectly straight with no curling tips or angling out away from the head, no leaning in over the head, etc.
Most of the ears that I have seen taped by breeders, owners and many veterinarians (who do not crop but who think they can tape) are done in a very haphazard manner. The taping must be done consistently and purposefully until the ears are standing. The tape must be applied with the proper pressure so that it will not cause excessive irritation or, worse, loss of blood supply to the ear and resultant sloughing. There is no way to predict how long it will take an individual animal's ears to stand. I have seen ears stand perfectly after one taping and ears that required constant taping at ten day intervals until the dog was a year old. If taping is not done consistantly and the ears are able to hang or curl for longer than about 24 hours, it is equivalent to starting over from the beginning. If the decision is made to crop the ears, a comittment to tape at the recommended interval must also be made. If this takes several months it can become very inconvenient for the new puppy owner. This should be seriously considered before the decision is made to crop the ears.
Q. Is tail docking painful/traumatic?
When the tails are docked at 2 to 5 days of age, the procedure seems to be momentarily painful, that is, the puppy cries during the procedure, but as soon as the pup is placed back with its littermates, it quickly falls asleep and is very willing to nurse if the bitch presents herself to the puppy. This is in contrast to a truly painful puppy who exhibits continuous crying and restlessness and fails to nurse. The older the animal, the larger the tail, and therefore the more traumatic the procedure. If the puppy is more than 10 days old, the procedure should be performed under anesthesia after the time of weaning, preferably at around 8 weeks of age. Many adult animals undergo the tail docking procedure out of necessity when their tail has been traumatized. Although these animals seem to want to lick the tail excessively and must be prevented from chewing out their sutures, the ones I have directly observed have not seemed unusually painful. By this I mean that they were willing to eat and play in their usual manner, but they would sometimes respond to pressure on the tail with a yelp or a sudden glance - a look that says "hey, that's sore!"
Q. What are dewclaws?
Dewclaws are like thumbs. They are the first digit on a dog, and, unlike digits 2,3,4 and 5, are not used for walking. They are located a short distance up the leg on the inside surface. They are usually removed at the same time the tail is docked, at 2 to 5 days of age. At this age, the bones that make up the toes are tiny and soft so that snipping them off is easy. If the dewclaws are not removed at 2-5 days of age, like the tail dock, one should wait until the pup is old enough to anesthetize safely. Removing dewclaws from an adult animal is much more difficult than snipping them off of a days old puppy. Recovery time is also longer and many adult animals will bother the incision excessively because it is so easy to reach. This usually necessitates the placement of an Elizabethan collar, a funnel shaped plastic device that surrounds the animal's head, so that it cannot lick or chew its sutures out. Dewclaws serve no purpose to the dog. They are easily snagged on things and often traumatized. Some breed standards (not the boxer's) require that they be left in place.
- Note: This overview is NOT intended as a substitute for consultation with your veterinarian. The information presented here is based on my education and experience as a veterinarian and boxer breeder and should be used as a prelude to detailed discussions with your personal veterinarian. I do not crop ears, but do most of the medical workups, aftercare and taping in the clinic where I practice veterinary medicine.
Submitted by: Wendy Wallner, DVM July, 1997
