Many reasons are given for the different breeds and range from the need to protect certain breeds from tail damage, for hygiene reasons, to protect breed standards, to ensure that puppies can be sold or exported.

Tail-docking is a cruel and purposeless procedure that is said to have originated in Old England. Working dogs had their tails docked so that the animals they herded wouldn't bite them. There were luxury taxes on pet dogs, but not on working dogs, so people started docking all of their dog's tails. Today there is almost no reason for docking a dog's tail. Some AKC breeds are hard or impossible to show if their tails are intact (there are people working hard to change this standard). This is, in my opinion, the only legitimate reason for docking, and it isn't even a very good reason. People will say "if my dog's tail weren't docked, he may wag it so much it would get bloody and infected". I don't accept this argument. It's basically like saying you should amputate your limbs because you may break them one day. The docking procedure itself is sickening even to hear about. At only a couple of days old, the puppies are removed from the room their mother is in so that she can't hear their screams, and the procedure is performed. They are given back to her bandaged and bleeding. People who support docking say it should be done very early in life, or else it will be immensely painful for the dog. The flaw in this argument is that infant puppies feel pain just as intensely as older dogs. If everyone agrees that it's too cruel to do it later in life, that means it's too cruel to be done anytime in life.

I am currently caring for my daughter's two pit bull/boxer mix, 9 mo old dogs. They were dropped off late last night after I had gone to bed. When I got up and greeted the dogs I let them outside with our three lab mixes. I noticed the white one was covered on her side with bloody scratch-looking marks. I could not imagine how she could get so scratched up on her side like that. Then I let all five dogs in. I was trying to look at the injuries on both dogs because I noticed the brown one had bloody scrapes also. I couldn't see much but then I looked up and Bianca's tail was slashing fresh blood all over the walls and door jams and even my own nightgown. Then, I remembered that my daughter had mentioned that they were having trouble with Bianca's tail bleeding. They couldn't keep a bandage on it and they could not get it to heal. Sure enough the bloody "scratch" marks on Bianca's side and even on Lucia came from Bianca's happily wagging tail. She wagged it so forcefully that it slashed bloody marks on her side each time. I then went on the internet to see what I could find out about this condition. I submit that it is sheer bleeding heart-nonsense to advocate the banning of tail docking. In the interest of uninformed compassion these advocates relegate dogs either to the risk of infection or to having their tails docked much later and at much more risk to the dogs than at the newborn puppy stage.

it was done in old england so that when hunting the tail of the dog could not be seen by birds e.g pheasants and scaring the bird away . therefore allowing the dog to creep behind it. it also stops injuries when climbing through fences ect...

Docking a dogs tail can also be beneficial to their spinal health. A boxer, for example, wags its tail so vigerously that it can often cause it to damage its spine over time.