BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATIONS OF PUPPIES UNDERGOING TAIL DOCKING

The behaviour of 50 puppies of traditionally docked breeds was recorde d during and after the procedure of tail docking at the University of Queensland Companion Animal Veterinary Hospital. The behaviours were r ecorded at the time of the procedure and then in 5 second intervals fo r the first minute followed by 10 second intervals until the pup settl ed to sleep. All puppies vocalised intensely (''shrieking'') at the ti me of amputation of the tail, averaging 24 shrieks (range of 5 to 33). The average number of minor vocalisations (''whimpers'') made during docking was 18 (range of 2 to 46). There were no shrieks recorded duri ng the recovery period. The average number of whimpers made during the first 30 s after completion of the amputation was 3 (range of 0 to 18 ). There was a significant (p less than or equal to 0.001) reduction i n the number of shrieks and whimpers emitted by pups in the 30 second period following docking. On average, the pups ceased vocalising 138 s after docking (range of 5 to 840 s). Significant correlation coeffici ents were found between the time taken to stop vocalising and the numb er of whimpers during docking (r = 0.409) and total vocalisations duri ng docking (r = 0.393). That is, the more vocalisations made during do cking, the longer the pup took to settle in the recovery period. The p ups varied in the time taken to settle to sleep with a mean settling t ime of 3 min (range of 35 a to 14 min). Although it is difficult to ob jectively quantify the stress experienced by puppies undergoing tail d ocking, observations recorded during this study suggest that the anima ls do experience pain. The pain appears to be short-lived (with all pu ppies quiescent by a maximum of 15 min). Further research into the iss ue of pain in pups undergoing tail docking is recommended to determine whether the procedure should continue.