John Wittenborn
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Cutler, Il.
Posts: 1631 |
Most of the Hounds back in the 40's & 50's,
were born with rear DEW CLAWS, in the area that I was raised in. Now these were Hounds bred to Hounds for more then a couple of generations. When a litter of pups was born on our place, my dad would cut them off, within two day's. He would use either a pair of wire cutters or his pocket knife, but they had to be cut off close to the LEG BONE. It didn't matter if they were Coonhounds, Foxhounds, or Field Trial dog's, they came off. The reason they were cut off, was because if a dog was run alot in brush & limbs or on crusty snow that was several inch's deep, those dew claws would start bleeding, & in some cases would be limping. I have seen a few cases where the little spur bone that would grow with age, in the dew claw, would be broken off, then they would carry that back leg. So to me it would be better on the dog, to remove the dew claws, as quick as possible after birth. If it is done at birth, you can't tell that they had dew claws to start with.
Another thing that my dad would do to the pups while removing the dew claws, was to snip about an 1/8 of an inch of their tail off, so they wouldn't have that SCREW TAILED LOOK. Also if this was done at birth you could not tell that it had been snipped off.
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John
CUTLER, AMERICA
Good judgement, is something that you get from using bad judgement.--Will Rogers
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