My Brandy has her ears done, it had to be a vet b/c it's a perfect cut. We adopted her and they were done, I don't know if I could do it to a little pup...I love the look of the cropped ears though.
Not sure if this is true, but I was told cropping the ears at a young age is not as bad as it sounds b/c the cartlidge hasn't formed yet and it doesn't really hurt them...like I said that's what I was told, who knows....
I don't know about cropping the tail on a pit bull, that's news to me...who knows, to each there own I guess...I think a cropped tail on a bulldog is plain ugly
Tail bobs and dewclaws are typically done at 2-3 days of age and absolutely no older than 5 days of age without general anesthesia (or at least how I do them). I know its sort of a stretch, but in my mind, they really aren't that much different than circumcision as long as appropriate analgesia is used perioperatively and post operatively.
The problem with doing ear crops young (ie 3-5 weeks) is the ear cartilage needs to mature to a certian point for them to look right, especially in breeds like dobermans where the desired effect is to take an ear that lops over and make it stand upright. There is a window of time where the cartilage is ideal for cropping to occur. If its done early, the ear may not stand upright as desired, if its done later, the ear is much larger, has a longer incision, will bleed more, and may result in thickened cartilage, which doesn't look good. I've said it before and I"ll say it again, ear cropping really has an "artistic" component to it, which in my mind makes them even less desireable to do because not every veterinarian has the ability to do them.
As far as the pain issue goes, I think thats pure bullshit---and its bullshit I've argued with with veterinarians who do ear crops--you are still cutting off half (or more) of the ear.
