Please call on Ireland's Minister for Agriculture to ban all tail docking - no exemptions for hunting dogs.

Considered by the Irish veterinary profession to be an unethical mutilation which "causes unnecessary short and long-term pain and suffering", tail docking is a cruel and painful procedure involving the removal of some or all of the tail.

The Animal Health and Welfare Bill 2013 makes it an offence to tail dock but shocking new regulations being drawn up by the Department of Agriculture could exempt hunters and terriermen. The regulations are also seeking to allow the cruel removal of the dew claws of dogs -  described as "the chopping off of the equivalent of the thumbs of pups".