The rationale for the bans on canine tail docking and ear cropping are generally along these lines:
"Cosmetic surgery does not define the dog; a Bouvier is the same with or without artificial, manmade change. A dog will work and act the same, regardless of whether or not the owner or breeder has chosen to mutilate him."
Is this true? Does appearance matter?
Setting aside for the moment the question of whether the process is morally acceptable in terms of discomfort let us address the issue of appearance and bearing. The United States Marine Corps has a long, and many Americans believe honorable, history. Yet their business is grim, for ultimately their function is to engage and defeat those our government, with or without wisdom, has identified as the enemy of the moment. The process is inherently demoralizing, an admission of the failure of the human race to conduct international affairs with anything approaching rational and civil means. Yet were it not for such men and their sacrifices none of us would enjoy our prosperity and liberty; be able to celebrate the Fourth of July.
When these men engage their adversaries they are dressed in fatigues and smudge their faces so as to be inconspicuous, so as not to attract attention. Yet every Marine also has a dress uniform for ceremonial occasions. When a young man returns from boot camp a callow youth has been transformed into a handsome young man, and, at least in the days of my youth, it was not unusual for him to appear in his hometown in his dress blues with the golden stripe down the leg, a sight to behold.
Yet some would say that this is meaningless, that a soldier does not need elaborate clothing, that appearance does not really matter. In the Vietnam era, those opposed to war chose to dress in a way intended to offend a more conservative generation; their tie dyed apparel was a uniform, a statement, just as much as the dress uniform of the soldier affirmed his allegiance to the heritage.
On the American frontier the Apache Indian was well entrenched and formidable. Yet what was an Apache? It is known that in war women were captured and they, or their children, were integrated into the tribe and in time became Apache. So it was not a unique genetic background but rather the heritage which defined the Apache, the shared cultural legacy, of which the customary and distinctive dress was fundamental.
When our American government wanted to "civilize" the Apache, that is restrict them to small plots of poor land to live on hand outs to make way for the westward march of civilization, they took the children, cut their hair, dressed them in European clothing and punished them for using their own language, demanded that they deny their culture, the words and example of their parents. They were put under enormous pressure to become Christian and to deny the beliefs of their ancestors. In time the goal was achieved, and the Apache tribe as an independent and self-sufficient social structure passed out of existence; crude and cruel as the process was, it worked. These people were no longer Apache on their own terms, but rather second rate Americans who had been stripped of their original heritage, and the land their ancestors had lived on.
This was of course a disgrace, but not a surprise, for we learned from the masters, the British, who applied it to the Scots and the Irish to strip them of their land to serve a new English land owning aristocracy. When the British wanted to colonize and conquer the highland Scots, they forbad the traditional dress and the clan associations. In the end, this was sufficient.
Even in America there are those who would dictate profound cultural change for their own ends and convenience. The veterinary organizations lobby to legally limit what people can do for themselves, such as crop ears and dock tails, in order to create monopoly and inflate prices and thus their profit. Sure, they portray this as for the benefit of the dogs of America, but the fact is that ear cropping has always been within the realm of the medical technician or more advanced breeder and that the veterinary community could better serve by providing education and support rather than create monopoly.
Furthermore, elements within the veterinary community lobby for the associations to ban ear cropping and tail docking as unacceptable as cosmetic surgery. In effect, a small group of emotional activists with veterinary licenses would take for themselves the right to dictate revisions in age-old customs and practices. Their medical background and the power of their organizations would take precedence over the rights of the individual breeder and owner to carry on centuries old traditions.
Genocide has been defined as "The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group." Sometimes the program is to exterminate each individual, as in the Nazi era in Germany. But other times, as with the Indians, and as with the British in Scotland or India, it was deemed sufficient to destroy the existing social fabric.
When the far left political and social movements in Europe seek to ban ear cropping and tail docking, they are not concerned about the welfare of animals, or about pain and suffering. They are like evil children who kill cats for sport, they do it because they enjoy the sense of power over something they have found to be weaker than themselves, the established canine community.
Their purpose is not animal welfare; it is genocide, the destruction of the breed. They understand better than the leadership of the canine organizations that the appearance is the breed, is a fundamental part of the heritage that forms the emotional bond over the generations of human beings who created and perpetuate the breed.
Just as military men have understood from time immemorial that the military bearing, as expressed and exemplified in the uniform, is the foundation of the esprit de corps fundamental to every viable military tradition, in the Bouvier world the cobby body and alert expression, enhanced and accentuated by the cropped ears and docked tail, is the essence of the breed. To abandon this traditional appearance is to abandon the breed itself.