Meeting of the Parliament 21 June 2017
I am one of the few current members of this Parliament who considered the evidence on tail docking when the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Bill was passed just over a decade ago. I am also someone who has actually witnessed a tail docking operation in a litter of puppies, and it gives me no pleasure to have to rise to oppose this ill-conceived, illogical, anti-scientific reversal of what was a progressive policy to protect the welfare of dogs.
The American historian Henry Brook Adams once said:
“Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.”
Let us look at the facts that will be ignored by the majority of SNP and Tory members in this chamber, if they press their buttons in defence of tradition and against the science of veterinary medicine.