Dear Secretaries. Et all.
It has been brought to our attention in the past, and on more than one occasion in the last few weeks that there is some ambiguity regarding the participation of cropped and docked dogs of various breeds within BAGSD.
Let us be clear.
Ear cropping and to a large extent, tail docking (except for medical exemptions and certain legally docked working breeds) is an illegal practice in UK. Legislation, now awaiting Royal Assent will prohibit future importation of cropped and docked dogs, wherever their country of origin.
Our Royal Kennel Club, with which all BAGSD Clubs are registered, prohibits any cropped dog entering any licensed event, the RKC describing the practice as Barbaric.
The FCI rules only allow cropped and docked dogs to enter club trials, provided that they do so in a country which legally allows the practice of cropping and docking.
As our country does not allow this practice, it is BAGSD view that such dogs must be declared by the owners/handlers to the organisation, and will not therefore be issued with a scorebook to ensure that no one is any doubt that they may not participate in our trials.
To ensure that these dogs are not denied training, they would still be welcome at BAGSD Clubs for education.
So Cropped and Docked dogs will not be issued a BAGSD score book prohibiting entries in our trials. Nor will we accept entries from such dogs with other organisations’ score books, nor their country of origin.
I would ask all secretaries and trial managers to ensure that we make all potential entrants aware of the prohibition of such dogs in BAGSD IGP Trials.
George Robinson BAGSD IGP.
