The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1900-07-06
TAIL DOCKING
Discussed by Gen. Sherwood
In the American
Sportsman.

| IOle0C M
name society is making cruelty to ami
mails special feature just now. Tole-
do select society, as well as the humane
society, Is distressfuily stirred up over
the arrest, conviction and punishment
of several well to do gentlemen, who
have been fined 800 each for having
their horses tails made shorter. In two
| other arrests Just made, the tail dock
| ing owners have employed abebodied
lawyers and will fight the cases out in
the delayful courts.
Just how old tail docking is we will
| not attempt to state, nor Is the name
Of the author of the system preserved
in any of the standard encyclopedias of
any language. We borrowed tNe cruel
custom from England, where we bor-
rowed our common law and legislative
system.
Many OF the picturas Of the old time
trotters are shown with docked tails,
notably Flora Temple. Fifty years ego
1t was the common custom to both
dock and nick road and carriage
horses. Prof. Robert Stewart, who pub
lished horse book in 1868, en,bodying
as he claimed, the results of 20 years
veterinary experience, thus emphasiz-
ing the prevailing opinion of that time
on the docking practice. We quote:
THE Almighty has not seen fit to
provide race of pigs and dogs without
ears, nor Of horses with short tails, for
the especial qualification of a superior
class of human beings. Nothing daun-
ted, however, they set to work to supply
the deficiency. Not only is the poor
horse deprived of his tail, but he must
stand with his tail drawn upward by
a cord tied to the hair and then passed
over pulley with a weight attached
at the opposite end, where he must re-
main for two or three weeks in order
to give permanent upper twist to the
short stub of a tail"
In modern docking, however, the
nicking and painful pulley methods are
no longer In vogue. The Ohio law Is
very severe. 1t provides for both fine
and imprisonment, at the discretion of
the court. 1t appears to have origina-
ted when the late Col. John A. Lo-
gan (killed in the Philippines) was i'm
porting and breeding the English hack
ney on his farm near Youngstown, o.
The member of the Legislature from
that county (Mahoning) in order to
punish Logan, worked the present law
through the Legislature After that Lo-
gan roaded his young hackneys bred
on his farm, Just across the Ohio and
Pennsylvania line and had them duly
docked in Pennsylvania.
There are but few nerves in the solid
part of horses tail, hence the docking
process is not very painful; much less
than in dog or lambs tail. Nearly all
pet dogs are not only subjected to the
painful process of having their useful
and ornamental narratives radically
abbreviated, but to the more cruel
practice of having their ears clipped
with pair of dull shears. And yet,
with a new dog law with nearly every
legislature, this kind and companiona-
BILE pet Of the gentleman loafer has
never commanded the humane SYM
pathy of our Ohio statesmen.
And how our boyish hearts bled in
sympathy, In the sheep washing spring
time, to see the frisky little lambkins'
tails on a block, to be severed by a
heartless blow with g cruel chisel, to
be let loose, bleating piteously with the
rich red blood streaming from the bru-
| tai wound.
Unfortunately for the more complete
humane achievements of the alert To-
ledo humane society there Is no humane
law on our already too cumbersome
book Of statutes topunish the cold blood
ed mutilators of our pet dogs and in
nocent lambkins and succulent pigs.