Complex sentence: It was traditional to have the tails docked and the ears cropped to give an alert appearance, but cropping and docking are now illegal in the European Union, Australia and New Zealand, and becoming less common elsewhere.
Split into simpler sentences: It was traditional to have the tails docked and the ears cropped to give an alert appearance. Cropping and docking are now illegal in the European Union, Australia and New Zealand, and becoming less common elsewhere.