Monday, October 14, 2013

The Concept Of Ear Cropping

By Catalina Nielsen


Ear cropping is a concept that has been ongoing since time in memorial. It used to involve many domestic animals such as cows, pigs, goats, sheep, cats and dogs. Lately, the practice has been left for dogs. It is a process where the floppy parts of the ears are cut and shaped so as to gain the ability of standing upright.

A vet officer is the one who does this procedure. He or she has to make use of a sharp blade and anesthesia to limit the amount of pain this dog might feel. When done, they are tied up using clean dressings for them to cure. On a daily basis, these cloths are removed and new ones tied. The wounds are expected to have healed in four to eight days.

For better results, this surgery is done on puppies ranging from eight to twelve weeks old. This is because at such a tender age, these young ones tend to heal faster and it will be simple to monitor their progress in healing. Besides, they are easy to manage with the bandages and also making sure the ears are upright.

The most important thing after the surgery is to ensure that the ears remain intact for the healing process to take effect in a smooth manner. The owner has to be on the lookout to prevent them from scratching. In case this happens, the puppies end up contracting infections and it is just another complication to deal with. It creates hurting and uneasiness to the dog.

Cases of ears taking long to stand have been reported in some instances. This happens when there are infections within the affected parts. If they are okay, then one has to exercise a lot of patience as with time, they will be up. The only emphasis is to ensure nothing tempers with that section and bandages are being changed daily to cover it up.

There are two main motives as to why people perform this operation on dogs. The first one is a belief that the dogs get an enhanced sense of hearing from a distance once a part of the floppy part has been done cropped. The explanation concerning this is based on the ability of the ears to stand upright at all times. They become sharper and can get sounds whether of distress from a far distance and alert the owners.

Another reason is that the floppy part tends to cause accumulation of a lot of dirt. Once this dirt has accumulated to a large extend, there will be an attack by bacteria and other parasites thus; this part of the body will get infections. This is on the assumption that the floppy part will always be lying down thus preventing the accumulated dirt from getting out.

Whether these two motives concerning ear cropping are true or false, it is just a matter of time. That is why a number of animal right champions have come out strongly to campaign against this practice on the ground that it is harmful and not compliant with the privileges of animals.




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