Rspca

[gypsumsif]

I couldn't find a suitable forum to post this, so figured here was best. i hope someone can help out.

 

a friend of ours has 3 lovely rotweillers. 2 bitches and a boy. the bot got to the 2 bitches and before long she ended up with 22 pups. not too much of a problem, until she had their tails docked.

 

this was done for whatever reasons, and i don't wish to open up a debate on the rights and wrongs of tail docking. that could go on for ever.

 

but she ended up in court, was found guilty and fined £3000 + £11,000 costs.

as you can see, the costs awarded to the rspca are horrific.

the thing is, the courts have only given her 14 days to find the FULL £14,000.

 

is there any way that she can appeal the cost or get time to pay. this is causing loads of friction in her house. they could re mortgage, but now isn't the best time to be doing that.

 

the courts have have shown blank refusal to listen to her pleas. we could really do with some letters or web links to show to her and help her out a bit.

[Guest Old_andrew2018]

Hi

On a moral point of view I am opposed to docking, however being asked to find £14.000 I feel is unfair she should try to arrange payment plan.

You could look to the HMCS Her Majesty Court Service web site, I hope you find some help,

[Goldlady]

I am terrified of Rottweilers. I wasn't aware that you couldn't dock the tails, as all the ones I see have been docked. Or was it the way it was done?

 

Anyway, I am bumping up your post in the hope that someone can help.

[tendogs]

Evening

 

Did you get any help with this?

[gypsumsif]

in the end she remortgaged and paid the fine.

she was found guilty of docking the tails on 3 puppies. fined £3000 and had to pay costs of £11,000.

thankfully they didn't ban her from keeping animals. bear in mind tho, that it was her vet that did the docking because she believed it was still legal in wales. it isn't. i told her to get some of the fine/costs from the vet in question, but she decided to pay up and be done with it.

 

there's going to be a lot of dogs with broken tails soon. how stupid to ban something that is done to prevent such things.

 

i guess from your username that you also have an interest in dogs. do you have an opinion on docking?

[callumsgran]

I'd like to say that i have had quite a few dogs over the years

No tail docking, no broken tails ever

Totally unnecessary in my opinion

 

 

 

 

Can i ask why she had 3 out of 22 docked?

If it was asked for by the client then i'd be looking to them to cough up some cash

[honey5]

Can i ask why she had 3 out of 22 docked?

 

my first thoughts too

why were the RSPCA involved in the first place? they have no more rights than a DCA with regards to being on or entering your property unless accompanied my an officer of the law

 

honey x

[tendogs]

in the end she remortgaged and paid the fine.

she was found guilty of docking the tails on 3 puppies. fined £3000 and had to pay costs of £11,000.

thankfully they didn't ban her from keeping animals. bear in mind tho, that it was her vet that did the docking because she believed it was still legal in wales. it isn't. i told her to get some of the fine/costs from the vet in question, but she decided to pay up and be done with it.

 

there's going to be a lot of dogs with broken tails soon. how stupid to ban something that is done to prevent such things.

 

i guess from your username that you also have an interest in dogs. do you have an opinion on docking?

 

Good morning.

Yes to both questions, I breed and rescue border terriers and have 14 at the moment luckily I have the space to accommodate them (13, one has been re-homed today) but my bed is far too small, me, small boy, wife and all the dogs that can fit.

As to docking, well, I’m pretty smug because borders have never been docked so I don’t have to slide off my moral fence. It goes something like this: I understand why it was done historically when the dogs were used for purpose, worked that is, and I understand that a working dog can still be docked with the appropriate authority.

A tail however is one of the most useful tools for communication with dogs and so I have always thought that docking puts the docked dog at a disadvantage. I also find that dogs which have been historically docked look odd with a tail, Rotties for example, but amputating anything for cosmetic purposes is a moral quagmire.

Not very clear about this am I but I feel that as long as we use animals for human advantage and recreation (intensive chicken farming, killing bull calves in dairy herds, horse and dog racing etc. etc.) selecting one aspect of human interaction with animals and drafting legislation to enforce the will of a few activists seems to me to be pandering to the chattering classes and attracting votes than about animal welfare.

I’m sorry about your sister, I do know a lawyer who specialises in this area and I was going to give you his details, but never mind.

Dogs

[surfaceagentx20]

I know precious little about animal welfare law, but what seems to have happened here is that the dog owner has taken 3 dogs to a vet with a request that the vet carry out a surgical procedure to which the vet agreed. Only the surgical procedure carried out was a prohibited procedure.

 

It seems to me the vet is way more culpable than the dog owner:

[1] The vet did it

[2] The vet charged and received money for doing it in the course of his or her profession

[3] The vet operating in the course of his or her profession can be presumed to know whether the procedure he or she is asked to perform is lawful or not and where he or she is asked to carry out an unlawful procedure, the vet should decline.

[4] The commissioning of the offence by the dog owner is entirely dependent upon the action of the vet.

 

So why were no charges brought against the vet? Seems peculiar to me. On this basis, if I go to my doctor and ask him to administer a drug to my child (where unbeknown to me the drug is illegal) and he does, I'm in the firing line, not him. Eh?

 

x20

[tendogs]

Good afternoon/evening.

You have a point SAX20 but we don’t know that the vet wasn’t charged and we don’t know if the three were just specimen charges.

We might yet be enlightened.

Dogs

[FunkyFox]

The OP might not want a debate about the rights and wrongs of tail docking fair enough, but I think some 'facts' need correcting.

 

Tail docking is done for aesthetic reasons only (other than for specific breeds of working dog), to say it is done to prevent broken tails is simply not true. My OH is a vet nurse of 13 years and has never seen a single broken tail in a domestic pet dog or has heard of one.

 

Any vet who docks tails knows full well what they are doing and that it is explicitly banned by the RCVS and legislation other than for the exemptions provided for in the animal welfare act and the the docking of working dogs tails legislation. Strangley enough, Rotis are not covered by the exemptions. The suggestion that the vet did not know this (or indeed the OP's friend) is frankly laughable. Its like suggesting that a Traffic Officer did not know the speed limit was 70mph when caught speeding at 110mph! The vet should be reported and charged and stopped practicing.

 

I also had a wry smile at the bit about the apparent suprise at the sudden emergence of the 22 puppies! Quick lesson, girls+boys=puppies!

 

But I do have a solution, sell the 22 puppies (that was the original idea wasn't it!) average pedigree say around £500 each and you have £11,000 to go towards the costs and fine. If there's any change you could always have the bitch spayed.

[tendogs]

Back to 14

[callumsgran]

I assume the RSPCA entered a breakdown of their costs?

 

£11,000 seems a little excessive