Yet another reason to mutilate your dog!
I wish this was online so I could link to it. At the vet's a couple of weeks ago I was thumbing through Dog Fancy and their cover story was on Dobies. There was a little box about why you should crop and dock your dobie, aside from if you're going to show him/her.
So, apparently, a perfectly legit reason (nay, obligation) to dock and crop a dobie is because if ya don't, everyone will mistake your noble, impressive dobie for a silly, rednecky black & tan coonhound! Oh no!!! The Cletus of the dog world! And furthermore, not only will everyone look down on you for having a coonhound but little children and strangers will feel free to run up to your dangerous gaurd dog thinking its a friendly slobbery hound. And then they'll get bit, and then it'll be all your fault for not making your dobie look like a dobie instead of a coonhound. Because making your dobie dangerous has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Where to even begin here?
There are only a few states where any of this supposed coonhound-confusion would occur anyway. I am the proud owner of a black & tan, and everyone initially accuses him of being a doberman. Where I live, no one has even heard of coonhounds. I just say, "No, actually he's a black and tan coonhound." The usual reponse is "A what?" It has not yet once killed me or my dogs to have their breeds mistaken. No, really! Nor has it killed me or my dogs to make sure they are well socialized, always supervised in public and always leashed outside the dog park so that random people don't ever run up to them without me first being well aware of the situation and in control. Honest! Gah!
So, apparently, a perfectly legit reason (nay, obligation) to dock and crop a dobie is because if ya don't, everyone will mistake your noble, impressive dobie for a silly, rednecky black & tan coonhound! Oh no!!! The Cletus of the dog world! And furthermore, not only will everyone look down on you for having a coonhound but little children and strangers will feel free to run up to your dangerous gaurd dog thinking its a friendly slobbery hound. And then they'll get bit, and then it'll be all your fault for not making your dobie look like a dobie instead of a coonhound. Because making your dobie dangerous has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Where to even begin here?
There are only a few states where any of this supposed coonhound-confusion would occur anyway. I am the proud owner of a black & tan, and everyone initially accuses him of being a doberman. Where I live, no one has even heard of coonhounds. I just say, "No, actually he's a black and tan coonhound." The usual reponse is "A what?" It has not yet once killed me or my dogs to have their breeds mistaken. No, really! Nor has it killed me or my dogs to make sure they are well socialized, always supervised in public and always leashed outside the dog park so that random people don't ever run up to them without me first being well aware of the situation and in control. Honest! Gah!