Docking ban OverTurned

Much to the relief of Hunters throughout Scotland, the Scottish Government have approved the docking of the tails of Spaniels and Hunt Point Retrievers and have overturned the ban on the docking of tails.

The decision has been taken after research done by Glasgow University (Commissioned by the Scottish Parliament) that 52% of working Spaniels in the study and 34% HPR’s suffered from working related injuries that could have been prevented by their tails being docked 3 quarter of the way down while they were in the first few months of their lives.

It’s been a long haul for UK hunters over the last few years as many anti-hunting lobby groups forced a ruling to ban tail docking on retriever breeds unless it was deemed completely necessary. This study found that there was a case that it was inhumane to NOT dock a working Spaniels tail due to the possibility of injuries sustained.

Organisations such as the SGO have applauded the Scottish Government in the approach and the findings of the study. After the SGO obtained over 4000 signatures on a petition to overturn the previous ban this has become very good news.

The SNP Government in Scotland has often been criticised with having a hard edge approach to the Scottish Firearms and Hunting communities but the results of this study has been welcomed throughout the Scottish Hunting and Fieldsports community.