by Rab Bruce’s Spider

Those of us who suffer from cynophobia are admittedly poorly qualified to comment on the latest furore surrounding the Scottish Government’s decision to relax the ban on the docking of puppies’ tails, but there are a few points it is worth making on this subject.

First of all, it must be noted that the ban remains in place for the vast majority of dogs; it is only where a long tail is deemed unsuitable for a working dog that a vet may carry out the operation. Now, while most sensible people are against any unnecessary cruelty towards animals, it should be noted that vets do carry out other procedures on dogs which it could be argued are not strictly performed for the dogs’ benefit, but for the owners’. It should also be noted that the reason for relaxing the ban is that long tails may actually cause considerable pain to a working dog if it becomes caught in, say, a wire fence.

On the other hand, it can reasonably be pointed out that being trained to perform any duty which is likely to cause hurt to a dog means that the dog should not be required to carry out that work at all.

And here we come to a major problem with this legislation, because working dogs are, essentially, used by the wealthy in the pursuit of their preferred pastime of blood sports. Some have claimed that this relaxation of the ban is an example of the Scottish Government caving in to the influence of a few wealthy landowners, and that it would be more progressive to carry out a radical reform of land rights to effectively bring a halt to this sort of activity. However, while this certainly appeals to the egalitarian side of many people’s nature, it must be recognised that this would be a drastic measure and would probably take some years to implement in the face of strong opposition from the Tories and the media. While this was being done, dogs could be injured if the docking ban remained in place or, equally likely, illegal docking would be surreptitiously carried out in much the same way as birds of prey are being illegally killed. It is worth bearing in mind the analogy with women’s rights to an abortion. Whether one agrees or not, it must be recognised that there is no way to ban abortions, there is only a way to ban safe abortions. One cannot help thinking that a total ban on the docking of puppies’ tails would result in an increase in the number of "accidents" which require amputation of the injured tail.

As to where the rights and wrongs of this argument lie, I will pass no judgement since I do not know enough about the details. But one thing is absolutely clear; the SNP have again provided ammunition to their opponents by putting forward a controversial piece of legislation. Getting on with the day job hasn’t done them any favours, but that is because far too many people conflate the issue of SNP policies with the constitutional issue of Scottish independence. This is, I suppose, inevitable, but we really should keep in mind that the two are quite distinct. Scottish independence is not about the policies of either the Scottish Government or the Westminster Government; it is about our nation’s right to self-determination. If Scotland were a normal country, then we should be able to argue about policies put forward by the Government of the day. Instead, any controversial Government decision is somehow transformed into evidence which backs the claims that Scottish independence is a bad thing. The conclusion we can draw from this is that those who dislike the SNP because of the Party’s pro-Indy stance, automatically assume that the SNP would remain in power in an independent Scotland. They seem incapable of realising that an independent Scotland would be free to make its own choices once normality has been achieved.

So, by all means debate the issue of docking of dogs’ tails, but please don’t translate that into an argument either for or against Scotland’s constitutional future.