Thanks Becky
So my thoughts are:-
a) What's wrong with selective breeding?
b) IMHO it doesn't justify docking!

Not exactly It was more lighthearted than that, I don't much care if poodles are docked or not, that is for their breeders to concern themselves with.
It just tickled me that someone could do the reverse and say that was how nature intended them when they are so clearly a manmade creation.

OK Hewey I can see you were making a kind of light hearted comment. Fair enough.

We could, I guess, take this thread waaaay off topic by discussing the definition of the word 'nature' but let's not do that

There are quite a few properly tailed poodles of all sizes in Agility I`m happy to say
The difference in how well they get around a course because they have their full `rudders` is very clear to see compared to those whose rudder is not all there.
I would hazzard to say that of all dog `communities`, Agility is where you see more undocked dogs of all varieties than anyhere else because experienced Agility dog owners are very aware of how much a tail does for the dogs ability to move well.

Now that is a very interesting point.
Becky

Patch,
Well, even if it did nothing for their agility I would still say it's a primative & cruel practice.

Absolutely ! [ I`m an ADA member and totally opposed to docking full stop ].

I just raised that particular point because, as a longtime Agility instructor and competitor, I`ve had the opportunity to closely observe that side of it as well.
The first undocked dogs, [ of `traditionally` docked breeds ], in Agility whom I met and could closely observe regularly were students` full tailed Poodles many years ago which was when I started seeing such specific comparrisons in movement.

Because its something I am passionate about, [ anti-docking ], I have noticed more about the differences in docked and undocked dogs general physical movement than I would have otherwise.
Its just one side of things which shows so well how much dogs *need* their tails for far better movement whether doing agility or not :smt001