My wife just called me and asked if I knew why someone would split a dog's tongue on purpose. I have never heard of such and told her as much. Apparently a coworker asked her the same question because he said that his neighbor has pitbulls and splits all of their tongues.
A quick Google search turned up a case of torture and a genetic issue. I'm sorry I don't have any more information. I was just curious if anyone has heard of this. Is this a dog fighting thing maybe?
Yes, I've heard of this with humans. But this must make it difficult for the dogs to drink since they cup the end of their tongues.
I spoke with my wife again. The guy who enquired about it was given a puppy by the neighbor who breeds them. He noticed the tongue was split half way up and asked the breeder's wife what happened. She said she did not know why, but he splits all of his dogs.
It seems to me, that if you split a young puppies tongue shortly after whelping, it would eventually grow back together. He'd have to stitch it on either side, or something like that.
This kind of scares me. Reasons why aside . . . I cannot imagine he is finding a veterinarian to split puppy tongues for him. That leads me to question how he is doing this. . . all the conclusions I come to fit in the "animal cruelty" category. Of course that is with a lot of assumption on my part.
I can at least understand the "why" of cropping ears and docking tails in a working dog.
Our Cowdog's tail was already docked when we got her, presumably so that it would not get stepped on by a cow, pulling her to the ground, allowing her to then be trampled to death by the rest of the herd.
I've heard that LGDs have cropped ears so that wolves cannot grab ahold of them so easily.
I cannot exactly understand the "why" of a split tongue.
Had never even considered the possibility of such a thing...
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