The section on docking in the 1996 Guide to Professional Conduct should be drafted in appropriate legal terminology. The RCVS should continue to press Government for a change in the law, so as to render all docking for cosmetic purposes, which should be defined, illegal. Its recommendations for the review of the RCVS guidelines to vets on tail docking do no more than tinker with the present wording and are a recipe for misunderstanding and legal wrangling. We have been waiting a year for this report in the hope that it would pave the way to an acceptance by the RCVS of the individual vet's right to dock when he or she believes it to be in the interest of the dog. Instead, we see a flimsy report which merely reiterates a number of hoary old quotations and pads them out with an unrepresentative public opinion survey that makes no pretence at objectivity.
Any evidence favouring docking is treated dismissively.
None of this report is likely to clarify the issue for the working vet, and whilst declaring that the Government has fudged the issue, this working party report is no better. Although docking to prevent future tail damage in working dogs is grudgingly acknowledged, there is no new concession on this point. Vets who are docking today, are not docking for purely cosmetic reasons. Their actions are justified on a variety of grounds, out of genuine concern for the welfare of the dogs in their care. Any attempt at definition is certain to lead to endless legal wrangling, in which the Government would be unwise to get involved.