84 
THE A. K. C. AND CROPPING. 
Grand Crossing* 111.— Editor Forest and Stream: I 
have taken the keenest interest in the ear cutting discus- 
sion recently going on in Forest and Stream, and while 
I have taken no part in it myself I am gratified that the 
final outcome of this vexing question is settled, for the time 
being at least, 
I am pleased to note that the agitators of this matter 
could not muster enough votes with which to override 
the wishes and interest of those most concerned. In my 
opinion it only goes to show that common sense has pre- 
vailed. The advocates of those opposed to cropping had 
but one leg to stand on, to wit: the cruelty of it. I would 
like to ask, Mr. Editor, how many of those who have 
taken such a decided stand against cropping know from 
their own personal observations and knowledge the ex- 
tent of the cruelty inflicted. From my own observations 
in the last six or seven years, during which time I have 
cropped the ears of many and had many others cropped 
by others, I have never been able to discover any great 
cruelty in the operation: that is, when it was judiciously 
and scientifically done. "With the aid of cocaine hypo- 
dermically injected there is little or no pain, judging from 
the actions of the subject. 
I have on numerous occasions cut the ears of great 
Dane puppies, when they were 5 or 6 months old, with- 
out any assistance except that of the drug mentioned. 
After the operation the ears should be treated in manner 
as advocated by Dr. Phillips in his letter recently pub- 
lished in Forest and Stream. When so treated there 
will be no pain and little inconvenience to the puppy. 
Of all domestic animals when in distress the dog is the 
first to show it. Let him get hurt or injured and he will 
immediately take to his kennel and refuse all food, but I 
have never yet seen a puppy refuse his meal after the 
operation of having his ears cut. This in itself will prove 
that the pain is of trifling moment. Hence I say let the 
ear cutting and tail docking go on. 
The only way to abolish it is through the medium of 
the public. When the public refuses to purchase dogs 
with cropped ears and docked tails the breeders of these 
breeds will themselves discontinue the practice ;but neither 
the A. K. C, nor any other body of men, can force any- 
thing upon the public that it does not want, hence all legis- 
lation of this character through the A. K. C. should be 
discouraged. 
The only way to propagate the individuality of a breed 
of dogs is to leave it in the hands of the breeders. Once 
let the breeders give a breed up for want of popularity 
or favor with the public and it will soon disappear. In 
proof of this note at our big shows the absence of the once 
numerous and popular Newfoundland. From the time 
the first St. Bernard landed in America the Newfound- 
land has gradually disappeared— not, however, from any 
fault of his, but because the breeders could no longer keep 
him to advantage against the more popular St. Bernard. 
So with the cropped and docked dogs, if the public will 
not have them they too will soon disappear. 
I could go on in this strain and cite a hundred other 
reasons why cropping should not be meddled with by the 
A. K C, but the ground has been pretty well covered by 
other breeders. I will close this article by thanking the 
gentlemen who so gallantly fought the resolution at the 
A. K. C. meeting. Harry L. Goodman. 
Youatt on Cropping:. 
"I have some doubt whether I ought not to omit the 
mention of this cruel practice. Mr. Blaine very properly 
says that 'it is one that does not honor the inventor, for 
nature gives nothing in vain. Beauty and utility appear 
in all when properly examined, but in unequal degrees. 
In some beauty is pre-eminent, while in others utility 
appears to have been the ^principal consideration. That 
must, therefore, be a false taste that has taught us to pre- 
fer a curtailed organ to a perfect one, without gaining any 
convenience by the operation.' He adds, and it is my 
only excuse for saying one word about the matter, that 
'custom being now fixed, directions are now proper for its 
performance.' 
"The owner of the dog commences with maiming him 
while a puppy. He finds fault with the ears that nature 
has given him, and they are rounded or cut into various 
shapes, according to his whim or caprice. It is a cruel 
operation. A great deal of pain is inflicted by it, and it is 
often a long time before the edge of the wound will heal; 
a fortnight or three weeks at least will elapse ere the ani- 
mal is free from pain. 
"It has been pleaded, and I would be one of the last to 
oppose the plea, that the ears of many dogs are rounded 
on account of the ulcers which attack and rend the conch; 
because animals with short ears defend themselves most 
readily from the attacks of others; because, in their com- 
bats with each other, they generally endeavor to lay hold 
of the neck or the ears; and therefore when their ears are 
shortened they have considerable advantage over their 
adversary. There is some truth in this plea; but, other- 
wise the operation of cropping is dependent on caprice or 
fashion. 
"If the ears of dogs must be cropped it should not be 
done too early, otherwise they will grow again, and the 
second cropping will not produce a good appearance. 
"The scissors are the proper instruments for accom- 
plishing the removal of the ear; the tearing of the carti- 
lage out by main force is an act of cruelty that none but 
a brute in human shape would practice, and if he attempt 
it, it is ten to one that he does not obtain a good crop. If 
the conch is torn out there is nothing remaining to retain 
the skin round the auricular opening; it may he torn with 
the auditory canal, and as that is otherwise very exten- 
sible in the dog it is prolonged above the opening, which 
may then probably be closed by a cicatrix. The animal 
will in this case always remain deaf, at least in one ear. 
In the meantime the mucous membrane which lines the 
meatus auditorius substance, the secretion of the wax, 
continues; it accumulates and acquires an irritating 
quality'; the irritation which it causes produces an aug- 
mentation of the secretion, and soon the whole of the 
subcutaneous passage becomes filled, and seems to assume 
the form of a cord, and it finishes by the dog continuing 
to worry himself, shaking his head and becoming subject 
to fits. 
"Mr. Blaine very naturally observes that 'It is not a 
little surprising that this custom is so frequently or almost 
invariably practiced on pug dogs, whose ears, if left alone 
to nature, are particularly handsome and hang very grace- 
fully. It is hardly to be conceived how the pug's head— 
FOREST AND ■ STREAM, 
which is not naturally beautiful except in the eye of per- 
verted taste — is improved by suffering his ears to be re- 
moved.' 
"If the cropping is to be practiced, the mother should 
have been previously removed. It is quite erroneous that 
her licking the wounded edges would be serviceable. On 
the contrary, it only increases the pain and deprives the 
young ones of the best balsam that can be applied— the 
blood that flows from their wounds." 
A Lady on Cropping. 
The world is funny or tragic, dependent upon our din- 
ner and our liver. 
My dinner is eaten in loneliness, and presto! my liver 
is sluggish and I smile at the world and feel no mirth. 
I smile at the inconsistencies of the world. For instance, 
our very humane ideas! They depend so entirely upon 
style. We are humane or otherwise, as style dictates, and 
it's mostly other wise I 
There are dogs— I thank heaven! See what they are to 
us. The Esquimau says: "A man's best friend is his dog, 
better even than his wife," and no woman who once knew 
a dog's faithfulness and loyalty ever found his equal in a 
man. One wise man said: "The more I see of men the 
more I love my dogs," and in the newspapers we read daily 
accounts of the heroism of dogs — saving some one from 
drowning, saving some one from fire, catching burglars, 
finding lost children, always showing heroism that equals, 
yes, excels, man's. And yet how do we treat these speech- 
less friends? 
Style says torture them, clip their ears and bob their 
tails. We heed no other consideration, and we clip and 
bob! We impose the most horrible suffering upon them 
merely so we may own "stylish" dogs! And we prate 
about our humanity ! 
Last summer I saw five bull-terriers being made "styl- 
ish." They were several months old, and had pedi- 
grees that would fill a column nonpareil. They were 
darling puppies, and had been sold for $50 apiece. But 
before being delivered to their owners they were under- 
going the martyrdom of being trimmed into style. 
The week before theirs ears had been cut to a point and 
their poor tails chopped off close to their bodies. As they 
ran to me in obedience to my call, they tumbled over 
each other, puppy-fashion, and so painful were their raw 
wounds that they ran about madly, howling in fearful 
agony. 
The man showing them to me picked them up one after 
the other, and pulled their sore ears with all his power, 
to give them a sharp point, as he explained. The frenzied 
cries of those helpless puppies made my heart sick. 
"It is inhuman, barbarous," I said, turning away, faint 
at the sight. 
"But it's got to be done fer style, m'm," he explained. 
"We couldn't get any price fer them wid long ears." 
What matters the suffering of these helpless dogs so 
long as they are "cut" into style? For what do we sup- 
port the Humane Society in luxurious idleness? And why 
do we pretend to be humane and civilized? I ate my din- 
ner in loneliness, and so I smile. 
To add to our laurels the Kennel Club, that loves dogs 
so well that it gives us a big dog show every year, decides 
that it shall continue to be the style to clip and bob and tor- 
ture dogs. It was so easy for them to befriend the animal 
that is of such profit to them. Had they voted against 
the practice dogs would have been saved untold suffering 
and the club would have borne the stamp of civilization. 
I hope every man, woman and child that loves a dog will 
refuse to patronize the dog show until the club shows some 
humanity for the animals it exhibits. 
I love my dogs— my friends, who are always glad to see 
me, who are never unkind, who can read whether joy or 
sorrow is in my heart though it be hidden from the eye of 
man , who welcome my coming and grieve at my going, 
who will f east with me and who will starve with me, whose 
loyalty is everlasting. As they love me, so I love them, 
and I hate the fiends who "cut" them into style. — Nellie 
Bly in the World, 
Dalziel on Cropping. 
"Cropping, which fashion prescribes for certain un- 
fortunate breeds of terriers, has no justification offered 
for it except the taste (?) of the admirer of this cruel and 
useless operation. It is said cropped terriers look sharper 
and handsomer than those with the ears left on, but the 
absurdity of this appears when we remember that it is 
not applied to Dandie Dinmont, Bedlington or fox-terri- 
ers. It is cruel not only in the pain the operation causes, 
but far more so in exposing one of the most delicate 
organs to the effects of cold, wet, sand and dirt, by re- 
moving the part nature intended as a protection. What 
would be thought of a fashion that demanded that the 
eyelid or the haw should be removed, with the result that 
the dog could not clean his eye from the matter blown 
into it? Cropping by exposing the internal parts of the 
ear to the weather and the intrusion of particles of sand, 
etc., produces canker, inflammation and deafness, and. 
cannot be too strongly condemned." 
A. K. C. Resolution. 
In the December American Rennet Gazette is the fol- 
lowing notice of resolution by Dr. H. T. Foote: "Please 
give notice in your next issue of the Gazette that I will 
offer at the February meeting of the Kennel Ciub the fol- 
lowing resolution (not amendment or addition to the 
bench show rules): 
Whereas, The mutilation of dogs is a recognized cruelty 
and not necessary or justifiable excepting in cases of 
disease, and 
Whereas, The cruelty-to-animal laws throughout the 
States make such mutilation a misdemeanor, punishable 
by imprisonment and fine, 
Resolved, That all dogs born after Dec. 31, 1896, must 
be shown in their natural conditions, and if in any way 
mutilated will be considered "improperly tampered with" 
and subject to Article XI. of the rules governing bench 
shows. 
Albany, N. Y. — Editor Forest and Stream: I was sur- 
prised at a statement made by Mr. Watson at the A. K. 
C. meeting, Dec. 19 last, re anti-cropping amendment. 
You quote Mr. Watson as saying in reference to cropped 
Irish terriei-3 at the present day in England, viz. : "You 
cannot get a cropped Irish terrier in England now, and 
none have been obtainable for some years." 
TJaN. 11, 1886. 
— - — ■■ — ----- - ■ ■ - - - - - ■ 
I fear Mr. Watson rarely reads his English Stock-Keeper 
or he would frequently see cropped Irish terriers for sale. 
Let him refer to the Stock-Keeper Dec. 20, just to hand. 
He will there see advertised for sale Marton Masher, a 
cropped dog, and he is a winner during the last eighteen 
months of over twenty first and specials, of course not 
under E. K. C. rules. 
Then again, what about champion Breadenhill, another 
cropped specimen still in the flesh, and one of the most 
perfect of his breed that has ever been exhibited, winning 
first and specials, Crystal Palace, Birmingham, Manches- 
ter, Brighton, Glasgow, Edinburgh, etc., in fact a winner 
in highest company whenever exhibited. 
Of course anybody knows that a cropped Irish terrier is 
handicapped at the present time for exhibition purposes. 
It was the non-cropping question that drove that prince 
of fanciers, Mr. Herbert Graves, of Liverpool, out of 
breed, and at the time he owned champion Extreme 
Carelessness, champion Playboy, champion Glory, etc. 
Still occasionally a cropped dog of this breed is ex- 
hibited in England, but, as I said before, not under E. K. 
C. rules. T. S. Bellin. 
Jan. 2. 
Idstone on Cropping. 
Speaking of bull- terriers in "The Dog" he says: "The 
ears should be uncut — as nature made them — not improved 
by the illiterate by cutting away the lobes, pointing them 
in an upright position until they are rigid and erect for 
life. 'God never made his work for man to mend.' " 
Minnesota Society for the Protection of Dogs. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
To appreciate the advantages of a great game estate is 
to live in it; to know the necessity for the conservation of 
the game supply is to be in touch with all field interests. 
The resources of Minnesota have made her famous, and 
the resident sportsmen are keenly alive to the value of 
their heritage. The beauties of our lakes and forests, the 
successes with rod and gun, have been told by many pens 
in the columns of Forest and Stream. The tales of camp 
life and pleasant outings are the tiny craft that float so 
lightly in the deeper current of game and fish protection. 
While there are no gallant exploits of arrest and con- 
viction to chronicle for the voluntary game and fish pro- 
tective association of the State during the past year, yet it 
has worked steadily and well. Information from this 
point, a quiet tip from that, have all found their way to 
the State Commission for the action of Executive Agent 
Fullerton and his wardens. 
It has been a great year to record for the constituted 
authorities, and an educational campaign of game and 
fish protection by the citizens' movement. 
Mr. Fullerton in his annual report gives full credit to 
the voluntary work and recognizes the deterrent influence 
on illegal taking that such an association has inspired. 
The sportsmen of Minnesota have now gone a step 
further. We are working to protect the game and fish 
for the people at large, but have now struck nearer home 
and find it necessary to institute a public movement to 
protect the gunner's friend, his dog. Good hunting dogs 
are valuable property to own here and very tempting sub- 
jects to a thief. 
In the larger cities a number of valuable dogs have 
been lost to their owners by theft in the last several years, 
but from the number reported this season it is evident 
that there is an organized effort by dog thieves to take up 
and dispose of the most valuable. But few so lost have 
been recovered. Instancing the fact that of a party of 
five whose gunning trip was noted in a daily paper, with- 
in two weeks each gentleman had lost his dog. 
The dog is personal property in Minnesota and taxed as 
such in addition to local licenses; but owing to the sys- 
tematic evasion of city ordinances the police make but 
few efforts to recover stolen dogs. 
But the line has now been drawn, and at a general 
meeting of dog owners held at the Windsor Hotel in St. 
Paul recently an association that in its field stands alone 
in America was organized under the title of the Minne- 
sota Society lor the Protection of Dogs, and a full comple- 
ment of officers elected as follows: Uri L. Lamprey, 
President, St. Paul; Henry G. Smith, Vice-President, 
First Congressional District, Winona; H. M. Twitchell, 
Vice-President, Second Congressional District, Wortbing- 
ton; T. M. Paine, Vice-President, Third Congressional 
District, Glencoe; Harry Wack, Vice-President, Fourth 
Congressional District, St. Paul; Wm. L. Wolford, Vice- 
President, Fifth Congressional District, Minneapolis; 
Wm. C. Sargent, Vice-President, Sixth Congressional Dis- 
trict, Duluth; A. G, Anderson, Vice-President, Seventh 
Congressional District, Crookston; John S. Prince, Jr., 
Treasurer, St. Paul; Wm. L. Tucker, Secretary, St. Paul; 
John E. Stryker, Attorney, St. Paul; Stan Donnelly, At- 
torney, St. Paul. Board of Directors— Frank F. Loomis, 
Richard Price, V. S. ; Wm. Libbey, Geo. Scales, L. D. 
Barnard, all of St. Paul. 
The association starts with more than 150 members in 
the Twin Cities alone, and reasonably certain of hundreds 
of members from the State at large. The constitution 
speaks the object of the association as follows: 
"The purpose and business of the society shall be, to 
protect its members in the possession and ownership of 
valuable dogs; to secure the return of the same when 
astray or stolen, and to prosecute and by all legitimate 
means assist in the punishment of dog thieves." 
It is sure to meet with a hearty response from the dog 
owners of Minnesota; and it may be the means of starting 
a national association with like objects, and ultimately 
make it impossible for dog thieves to dispose of their 
catches in any city or State. Wm. L. Tucker, Sec'y. 
Pace in Shooting Dogs. 
Tyro Shops, N. C— Editor Forest and Stream: Speed 
in shooting dogs is commonly overrated. There are 
several other qualities of much greater consequence that 
do not seem to attract so much atteniion. As a matter of 
fact, some of the rather too slow ones show great intelli- 
gence and do their work in grand shape. 
A dog that goes at his top speed can't last long, nor 
can he do first-class work. The fact is, he is nervous and 
in too great a hurry to take time to work out his ground 
properly. He may make a sensational point now and 
again by almost accidentally catching the scent of a 
covey at a few yards that he might have scented at three 
times the distance had he been going at the pace that he 
could keep up for four hours. 
