Don't be fooled by the AR groups - there is solid medical reasons to crop

Dr. Purswell on the advantages of ear cropping:

I came across some informaiton from a very distinguished vet Dr. Beverly Purswell who shared her opinion concening ear Cropping...  Other than every vet I have worked with she is one of the few to speak up about the advantages from a medical perspective on ear cropping.  I thought I would share her comments here as it is a good follow up on my articles on Ear cropping.

Dr. Purswell, DVM, PHD:
"...I remind them of all the ear problems seen in flop ears dogs, which are not seen in erect eared dogs. No wild canids, or any wild animal for that matter, has flop ears. Animal control officers will tell you that flop ears are eliminated in the F1 generation of dogs that go feral. Nature gets rid of the flop ear that quickly."

My only point is that an erect ear is a healthier ear. There are many scientific articles in the literature finding this to be true, that most ear infections are in flop ears dogs. This is due primarily to the lack of air circulation to the ear canal. I point this out to my veterinary students as a counterpoint to their blanket condemnation of ear cropping as being cosmetic only. And, yes, the AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association) Animal Welfare Committee came out against docking and cropping because they could not support cosmetic only procedures.
Beverly J. Purswell, DVM, PhD
Professor-Theriogenology
Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences
VMRCVM
VA Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061

Every vet I have every asked, except for new vets coming out of school have told me this same thing - they see far more ear infections from the floppy earred breeds thatn cropped.

Second point I read this past week is, that while the cropped ear does not improve hearing significantly it does make it easier for the dogs to locate the direction of the sound.  In tracking this would be a very important ability to have.

I know when working with my guys they are constantly turning one ear of the other as they hone in on a particular sound.  It is like watching radar at work as it searches for any sound.

The AR (Animal Rights) folks would like you to believe it is just cosemetic because they want to put their nose in a business that they know little about and could honestly care less about the welfare of any animals.  They suffer from tunnel vision and delusions -  with no real plan on how the world will survive when they have destroyed one of our major food sources and taken away our rights to own animals and have pets.

This fight has never been about cropping and docking it is about pushing their vegan twisted lifestyles on everyone.  It is about taking something to the extreme and so far out that in the end the total destruction of life and food as we know it will be changed forever.

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