I think we have already established GSD's are not as at risk as some breeds, I too owned gsds that did attack work, to be honest my dogs tail never came up high, the end would curl up but it never came up from the base of the tail, rotts and dobs can stick straight up in the air and fall over the back more or less into the face of the person they have a hold of,,,,,

Nor to Belgians Shepherds

Alsatians...Belgians...
They have tails.
Dobes are rarely, if ever, used as crowd control, their job is more patrolling Security than anything else. When I was in Ireland, the handlers assigned to protect the group I was with used Dobes for night time patrol. We were given demo and believe me the last thing a target would be thinking about would be trying to grab a moving tail with a load of teeth in the way...

no its not

Nor Labs, nor Retrievers, nor long coated Weims, and others - anomolies prodockers dont seem to have an answer to...

Alsatians, Belgians....

Well said !

ERM I had noticed it was pastry. lol when have you ever said well said to a post of mine

patch we have already covered that the tail set on gsds and so on is very diff to rotts and dobes,
you never know one day with selective breeding all rotts may have tails set low, like labs or Gsds then it wont be an issue, but god knows what they will lose to gain the tail, hope its not temprament eh

read what i say becky I never said injury I said the tail can be used to lift the dog

Why would a physical part like a tail affect temperament negtively in terms of breeding

In terms of environmentally however, Rotts with tails look friendlier instantly so people seeing them dont have the common knee jerk reaction of stiffening up at the sight of them which means dogs feeling less `on edge` when not getting a negative reaction from people all the time, [ I`ve seen it soooo often, dogs repeatedly being viewed with suspicion or fear which can and often does transfer to the dogs psyche sooner or later, the same as handler tension transfers down leads ].

Better communiction to other dogs also helps prevent misunderstandings between them. My deaf dogs find most docked dogs very difficult to read [ being purely visual and cant tell if other dogs are growling/grumping or not, all they can go by is posture, and certain facial/eye markings of some breeds - ie Rotts...- do play a part in enhancing potential threat no matter how unintentional on a docked dogs part - tails and body movement becuse of the less stiff docked stance do help dilute that markings-led perceived `threat` where there is non intended by the dog ], they have really highlighted physical visual communication elements which I would probably otherwise have never realised without really studying this side of things personally - fwiw, understanding and recognition of physical movement for canine and human communication is paramount for me in having deaf dogs and has been a specific source for close study for me for over half my lifetime.

Undocked Rotts and Boxers especially have a much more natural stance and movement which is noticeably less visually threatening to other dogs, [ rear end spinal and muscular development being more normal when undocked ].
Things like that tends to be more apparent when a person really studies them closely.

So, I firmly believe that tailed Rotts will get a hike in visual `acceptability` to the man in the street which will lead to less breed specific apprehension on sight, which will in turn rub off on the dogs because they wont be seen so much with the `devil dog` tag which non Rottie-savvy people use :smt075 which leads to better environmental opportunity for more positive general socialisation which is so important for good temperament.

Your Rotts are of course used to being handled and accepted because of Showing, training and socialisation which is second nature to you to do with them and among people in the Showing / activity Competing circles you spend time with, but for the general pet owner who gets spat at in the street [ which people have reported happening every time there is a Rottie attack in the press ], their future tailed dogs will not have to be walked where no one is around to finger point and abuse their owners.

Honestly Shona, all the fears you express have not happened at all in the countries where docking has been banned for many years, certainly long enough for the problems you think `might` happen to surface if they were going to.
Everything pro-dockers worry about happening here have been proven time and time again to be without foundation.

Have a little faith :smt001

People will be less inclined [ nor able ], to try to go for the tail [ nice high movement here ]




When trying to avoid this...





[ Images from http://www.clarkairbasek9.com/training.htm ]

as the owner of a Belgian Shepherd (a breed which is used as police dog) I can assure you that it takes very little excitement for her tail to be raised.
Good piccies Patch, I do think that it is only around horses you need to be aware of both ends