You may have heard about ear cropping in the news recently. It’s an animal welfare ‘hot topic’ at the moment and for good reason. Ear cropped dogs are becoming increasingly popular in the UK; despite the procedure being illegal, painful, potentially dangerous, and in the vast majority of cases, completely unnecessary. So what is ear cropping, why is it becoming so popular, and what is being done to put a stop to it?
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What is ear cropping?
Ear cropping is a surgical procedure in which all or part of the pinnae (the external part of a dog’s ear) is removed. Sometimes the ears are then splinted to make them stand up. It’s commonly performed on dobermans and bully breeds to make their ears less floppy and to give them a ‘tough’ appearance. (The one in our picture above is healthy with uncropped ears – that’s why we chose her!). Ear cropping is illegal in the UK and many European countries.
How popular is it?
Ear cropping is becoming more and more popular in the UK, despite it being illegal. The RSPCA reports that it has seen a 236% increase in the number of reports of ear cropping in the past 5 years.
Additionally, a recent study published in the Veterinary Record identified 132 dogs coming into UK Veterinary Practice with cropped ears between 2015 and 2022- this is likely to be an underestimation of the true numbers due to the limited pool of practices included in the study.
In 84% of these cases the dogs had been imported into the UK. Surprisingly, they most commonly came from countries where cropping is also illegal; including Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Spain, Poland and Ireland.
Why is ear cropping bad?
Ear cropping is commonly performed without anaesthetic or pain relief, using tools such as scissors or knives to cut a puppy or dog’s ears. As you can imagine it’s incredibly painful. Ear cropping wounds take a long time to heal (often months) and post-operative infections are very common.
Ear cropping also affects a dog’s ability to communicate with other dogs and humans via ear movements. Body language and signals are vital tools for canine communication.
Why put a dog through all this when there is no health benefit?
Why do people ear crop?
In the majority of cases, ear cropping is performed for aesthetic reasons, to give the dog a certain look. There are only a very small number of cases where a vet might need to remove the ear pinnae, for example, in order to remove a tumour.
Supporters of ear cropping claim it has medical benefits to the dogs, the most common reason cited is that it reduces ear infections. There is no evidence to support this claim. Any vet will tell you that ear infections are often a result of underlying skin allergies. Plenty of floppy ear dogs live their whole lives without ever getting an ear infection.
Many feel that celebrities are at least partly to blame for normalising ear cropping. An increasing number have been sharing photos of their ear cropped dogs online in recent years. This has resulted in the look becoming part of a ‘trend’ in much the same way as flat-faced dogs have become trendy.
How can I stop ear cropping?
As a member of the public, the best thing you can do is to help stop the normalisation of ear cropped dogs. Never purchase an ear cropped dog (adopting is fine) and never like or share pictures of ear cropped dogs on social media (unless the welfare impacts of ear cropping are highlighted).
If you suspect that someone is illegally ear cropping dogs or arranging for dogs to have their ears cropped you can also report it to the RSPCA.
Is the government doing anything to stop ear cropping?
One part of the solution to ear cropping could have been the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill. This is a piece of legislation which would have made it illegal to import dogs with cropped ears into the UK. Remember, the majority of ear cropped dogs are likely to come from abroad.
However, Bills need to pass through several stages of parliament in order to become law. Unfortunately the Kept Animals Bill was withdrawn before it completed all parliamentary stages.
The Government has advised that it will take forward each issue covered by the Bill (which also included legislation on other key welfare issues such as puppy smuggling) separately. They’ve already started doing this with legislation to ban the keeping of primates as pets.
Animal welfare charities are concerned that some of the issues covered in the Bill, such as ear cropping, will be dropped completely, and they are lobbying the Government to bring the Bill back into parliament.
Conclusion
Ear cropping is a totally unnecessary procedure that is illegal in the UK. Despite this, it is becoming increasingly popular, especially in certain breeds such as dobermans and bully breeds. Members of the public, animal welfare charities, vets and the Government need to work together to stop ear cropping.
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