In a huge step for animal welfare, Alberta veterinarians are no longer able to conduct cosmetic surgeries and surgeries that do nothing to medically benefit the animal patient.

The list of banned surgeries include:

  • Ear Cropping
  • Tail Docking
  • Forelimb Declawing
  • Body Piercing
  • Debarking
  • Declawing

Doctor Jeremy Mount, a veterinarian with the Airdrie Animal Health Centre describes why these surgeries are now banned in Alberta

"On a whole, the major reason, although there are a lot of small reasons in between is that these are all cosmetic procedures. They don't improve the welfare or the health of the animal and they can have pretty dramatic side-effects or consequences, of course. They're really just cosmetic. There's no medical benefit to doing them."

Mount says that he believes this step should have been taken a long time ago.

"I can't believe it has actually taken us this long to ban these things, but really I think from an animal welfare perspective, the thought is if it only has risks associated with it and we're just doing it for looks, why are we doing it?"

Cosmetic surgery to make your animal appear differently can have just as many risks as any other surgery, says Mount.

"Any time you go through surgery, not just ear cropping and tail docking, any surgery is not without risks. Whether that's with infection afterwards or surgeries that don't work, there (will) always be risks. What we're trying to do is to determine (if the) surgery is necessary and a big reason for doing that is if the surgery will improve the health and the welfare of whoever we're doing the surgery on."

Some risks, according to Mount, can include infection and, if the cropping and docking are done unprofessionally, long-term health issues.

"From our standpoint, here at our clinic, we've seen a lot of ear cropping and tail docking done by people who don't know how to do it (and have it) go wrong with long term infections, long term pain," says Mount. "I'd say infection is probably the biggest (risk) that we see."

Mount believes that these surgeries are, at their core, unnecessary. 

"As a vet, we don't really understand it. Or maybe I don't; my animals are all rescues. I think where most of this is coming from is a long tradition more with breed related standards and show dogs."

"I think a big step in this would be for those breed standards to take a step back and ask 'is this necessary'. I think if we had the support of the kennel-clubs and if they didn't require those then this wouldn't be so much of a big deal."

Other surgeries, like declawing and debarking, are done for "luxury". The animal will act a certain way so, with the help of surgery, it is changed.

Mount says that debarking is a surgery that has long since died off.

"I've been a vet for about 8 years now and (debarking) is a procedure I've never done. I've never actually met a patient that has been debarked. I think that's a bit of an older procedure that isn't as common anymore. What I've heard from older vets who have since retired and used to do these things, they do a procedure in the back in the voice box area where they create a lot of scar tissue and that scar tissue does not allow certain tissues and bones to resonate and create sound, essentially debarking the animal."

According to Mount, barking is just part of a dogs nature.

"I think it was probably a bit of a luxury thing or something a certain owner would want if they had a dog that barks, as all dogs do. If they wanted a quiet dog, then there was a procedure that was available at the time to do that, but we know that barking is natural for dogs and if we're creating scar tissue and doing this surgery, why are we doing that?"

Mount says that declawing cats also could be interfering their natural defense mechanisms.

"What they've found over time is that the number of declawed cats (increases) the number of bite incidences because we're taking away one of the cat's natural defense mechanisms. Cats do have claws and, of course, they do scratch at things which can be annoying at home but there are lots of other toys and scratching posts so we can manage that," comments Mount. "Essentially, declawing a cat would be like taking your fingers and chopping off the last digit of every single part of your hand. Although it's convenient, I think you could talk to many human people who have had amputations and there can be long-term pain associated with that (like) phantom pain and pain within the nerve endings."

Mount fully supports the banning of the procedures.

"This is fantastic. I think this is something that has been a long time in the making. I think that with a lot of younger vets animal welfare was something that was really promoted a lot heavier (when) going through school. We're all very much on board with this. Not to say that older vets aren't, of course. They are. It was just a different era, a different time. We only know what we know at that given time. Given what we know now with animal welfare and pain and long term consequences, I think this is a great move."

 

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