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Canine Tail Injuries in New Zealand: Causes, Treatments and Risk Factors and the Prophylactic Justification for Canine Tail Docking

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Canine Tail Injuries in New Zealand: Causes, Treatments and Risk Factors and the Prophylactic Justification for Canine Tail Docking Copyright is owned by the Author of the thesis. Permission is given for a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and private study only. The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without the permission of the Author. Canine tail injuries in New Zealand: Causes, treatments and risk factors and the prophylactic justification for canine tail docking. A thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Veterinary Studies Institute of Veterinary, Animal and Biomedical Sciences Massey University Palmerston North, New Zealand Amber Wells 2013 i Acknowledgements Thanks to supervisors Kate Hill, Daan Vink and Kevin Stafford. I would like to thank Vivienne Lintott and Iain Gordon of Provet for writing the SQL script that made data collection on this scale possible, for providing detailed instructions for clinic staff, and for your always cheerful and swift responses to my various queries. A big thanks to the veterinary clinics that allowed me access to the information I needed to complete this thesis, particularly the VisionVPM pros more often than not found at reception. Thank you to the New Zealand Veterinary Association’s Companion Animal Society for their support and input into the original idea for this research thesis. Thanks also to Mrs Berys Clark for the financial assistance provided to me through the Lovell and Berys Clark scholarships I received in 2011 and 2012. To my partner Oskar, who I somehow found the time to “civilly unite with” during this year, thank you for your support over the past two years and of course, every year before that, and for the many to come. To my own dogs, Bowser and Nikki - who probably take their own tails for granted - I have appreciated your wagging tails whenever I have needed cheering up and am glad nobody saw fit to remove them before I adopted you. ii Abstract Tail docking of dogs is often justified on the basis that it prevents tail injury, particularly in working and hunting dogs. However, little data exists on canine tail injuries in New Zealand. Retrospective data from eight years’ worth of records was collected from the clinical databases of 16 veterinary practices. A keyword search “tail” was run, and the results filtered manually to find all canine cases of tail injuries. 0.9% (n=619) of all dogs seen by the vet clinics over the study period suffered a tail injury. The most common given causes were accidents (13.3%, n=83), half of these (6.7% n=41) from a door shutting on the tail. The second most common causes were vehicle related, for example being hit by or falling out of a car or utility vehicle (10.0%, n=62). Over half (51%, n=318) of the injuries were resolved by treatment with medication and over three quarters (77.7%, n=484) required a single vet visit. Only 13.8% (n=86) of tail injuries led to amputation. Non-docked breeds are assumed to have intact tails. There was a significant association (P=0.003, Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel Chi-squared test) between tail injury and not belonging to a docked breed. The odds ratio for belonging to non- docked breed was 6.15 (95% CI 5.83, 6.50) meaning a non-docked dog was at least six times more likely to injure their tail as a docked breed dog. Only 15.4% (n=96) of tail injuries occurred in traditionally docked breeds, but, the most common cause of injury within that group was docking itself (21.9%, n=21). Labradors, the most popular pedigree pet breed, injured themselves more often (1.4%, n=100) than the most popular hunting (pig dogs, 1.3%, n=23) and farming (Huntaway, 1.0%, n=60) breeds. iii It appears that tail injury is rarely observed usually easily treated. Tail docking puppies seems a severe method of preventing such injuries when only 13.8% had injuries or 0.12% of dogs visiting vet clinics require tail amputation. This study used a novel data mining technique with a specially written SQL script to search the clinical databases of the clinics. This made the process more efficient, and data was reasonably complete. The clinic software is used widely in vet clinics in New Zealand, so this technique could be used for similar epidemiological research in future. iv Contents Canine tail injuries in New Zealand: Causes, treatments and risk factors and the prophylactic justification for canine tail docking. ......................................................... i Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... ii Abstract ................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables and Figures ........................................................................................ 4 Tables .................................................................................................................. 4 Figures ................................................................................................................. 5 Chapter 1: Introduction – The relationship between tail docking and tail injury ......... 6 Chapter 2: Literature review -Tail injury and the justification for docking in dogs and other species ........................................................................................................... 8 Tail injuries in canines .......................................................................................... 8 Conditions that could be mistaken for tail injury .................................................... 9 Cauda equine syndrome ................................................................................................ 10 Limber tail ...................................................................................................................... 10 Anal problems ................................................................................................................ 10 Tail docking in dogs and other species ................................................................11 Procedure ....................................................................................................................... 12 Pain in young animals .................................................................................................... 14 Costs to the animal ........................................................................................................ 17 Risks of tail docking surgery ........................................................................................... 18 Justifications for tail docking ................................................................................19 Therapeutic docking (amputation) in dogs .................................................................... 21 Non-therapeutic Prophylactic tail docking .................................................................... 23 Confusion of non-therapeutic and prophylactic arguments ......................................... 25 Prophylactic Justification of Tail Docking ....................................................................... 26 Other cosmetic procedures in dogs .....................................................................31 Conclusion ..........................................................................................................33 Chapter 3: Data mining and veterinary medicine: a review of the literature .............36 Introduction .........................................................................................................36 Use of data mining software ................................................................................37 Information Overload ...........................................................................................38 Privacy and ethics in data-mining ........................................................................38 Conclusion ..........................................................................................................40 Chapter 4: Pilot Study .............................................................................................42 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 42 Method ............................................................................................................... 42 Results ............................................................................................................... 46 Discussion .......................................................................................................... 47 Chapter 5: Improved Methodology ......................................................................... 50 SQL script ........................................................................................................... 50 Recruitment ........................................................................................................ 52 Manual filtering ................................................................................................... 53 Case definition ................................................................................................................ 53 Categorisation of causes ................................................................................................ 55 Severity ........................................................................................................................... 55 Statistical Methods .............................................................................................. 56 Chapter 6: Results
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