Cropping and Docking in FCI: Now What?

These days, breeders of traditionally docked and cropped breeds in Europe — and everywhere else the FCI, or Fédéracion Internationale Cynologique, holds sway — are experiencing a severe case of whiplash.

After passing a resolution in 2021 that prohibited the exhibition of certain docked and cropped dogs at any of its shows after January 1, 2025 — even if the law of that country permitted the procedures — the FCI has now put that rule on hold.

And created a confusing mess in the process.

No, You Can’t … No, Wait … You Can … For Now

It’s no secret that increasing pressure from animal-rights activists in Europe has essentially ended the surgical modification of tails and ears in breeds where those practices had long been traditional — in some cases, for centuries.

Most every country in Western Europe has banned docking and cropping. Germany and its Rottweilers in the late 1990s were an early example: Not only can Rottweilers not be docked in Germany, but breeders cannot breed to any docked dog, even if it lives in a country that allows docking, even if the dog does not set foot in the country (in the case of a breeder using artificial insemination). And in the handful of European countries that still permit docking, most have strict rules governing it, including restricting the procedure to specific working breeds and requiring it to be done by a veterinarian.

The 2021 rule by the FCI that has now been rescinded focused specifically on 11 breeds whose standards had been previously modified to remove any description of what a docked tail or cropped ear should look like. Those breeds are the Doberman Pinscher, Boxer, Rottweiler, Giant Schnauzer, Standard Schnauzer, Miniature Schnauzer, German Pinscher, Miniature Pinscher, Neapolitan Mastiff, Great Dane and Cane Corso.

Legendary Neapolitan Mastiff breeder Mario Querci. In Italy today cropped dogs like this one are only found in photographs.

Not coincidentally, all 11 breeds originate in either Germany or Italy — countries where ear cropping and tail docking are illegal and carry heavy fines and/or prison sentences.

The new FCI position reversing the total ban on docking and cropping was approved by its general assembly meeting on August 8 at the World Dog Show in Helsinki, Finland. This means that cropped and docked dogs of those 11 breeds can now again be shown at FCI shows in countries where cropping and docking are not banned.

The FCI further instructed that judges should judge cropped and docked dogs equally compared to their natural-eared and tailed competitors. That said, cropped and docked are arguably at an advantage, as faults of the ears and tail — say, overly large ears in a Great Dane or a gay tail in a Boxer — can’t be identified. (Or at least not easily: Even though Dobermans in North America are always cropped, judges pay close attention to the position of the cropped tail, and, as directed by the Doberman Club of America, heavily penalize that fault in the breed.)

Change of Heart

What gave rise to this change of heart? Perhaps objections from across the Atlantic were finally being heeded: In many Latin and South American countries, cropping and docking are still routinely done. It would be almost unimaginable if Doberman and Boxer breeders in many of those countries — whose dogs traditionally have been quite high in quality — would suddenly reverse course and start leaving their animals intact.

Many nations in Asia, too, by and large have no such restrictions on docking and cropping.

He's not a Molosser, but this Doberman Pinscher (BIS BISS Am/Brz/Chl/Int/Mex/Urg Ch Arg GRCh Nello's Lex Luthor AOM WAC) illustrates the close back and forth between some breeders in the Americas. Bred in Argentina, "Lex" had a huge impact in North America, winning at the highest level and, more important, contributing to many American pedigrees.

Whatever the motivation for its about-face, the FCI now finds itself in a pickle, as the revised standards of those 11 breeds now only describe them as having natural ears and tails.

Which begs the question: How is a judge supposed to judge something that is no longer in the standard?

Recognizing the ensuing confusion, after the vote in Helsinki the FCI issued a clarification saying that “no definitive decision” had been made; the 2021 decision was simply “put on hold, pending a further announcement.”

After the assembly closed, the newly elected FCI General Committee named a working group that would start meeting as soon as the following month, “to find a solution to this complex international issue, hopefully within the shortest possible timeframe.”

Across the Pond

Here in the United States, breeders are not prevented from surgically altering their animals, although that hasn’t stopped animal-rights activists from trying to change that. And this July, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, sued the American Kennel Club in New York State, alleging that breed standards for the likes of the Bulldog, French Bulldog, Pug, Dachshund and Chinese Shar-Pei have led to “deformed” and “unhealthy” dogs.

Arguably, no registry or kennel club in the world is better equipped to combat such legal challenges than the American Kennel Club, which has a dedicated government-affairs department, and closely monitors laws that target purebred dogs and their breeders. In 2024, the AKC spent $120,000 on lobbying expenditures, according to the research group OpenSecrets.

AKC sees well-funded animal-rights extremists as a threat to the ability of breeders to preserve and perpetuate their heritage breeds, and it mobilizes fanciers to oppose state and local legislation that seeks to curtail their breeding rights.

By contrast, most European kennel clubs have adopted a conciliatory approach to their animal-rights antagonists. But rather than appeasing them, this seemingly has only emboldened them. Now activists have set their sights on modifying — or even outright banning — breeds that they consider too extreme in morphology — including, in some cases, certain brachycephalic Molosser breeds.

This has already happened in Holland, which in 2023 banned the breeding of short-faced breeds as disparate as Dogues de Bordeaux and Neapolitan Mastiffs, Affenpinschers and Yorkshire Terriers. In June, a court ruled that the Dutch Kennel Club could not issue pedigrees for dogs whose muzzles were shorter than one-third the length of their skulls. An outright ban on owning any dog, purebred or crossbred, with those muzzle-skull proportions is in the offing. 

How soon before its neighbors follow suit?