Children’s films such as Up normalise ‘horrific mutilation’ of dog ear cropping, says MP

Neil Hudson supports Animal Welfare Bill which would close legal loophole allowing altered animals into the country

Children’s films and celebrity trends are making people think that it’s acceptable to crop their dogs’ ears, an MP has claimed.
Neil Hudson, a Conservative MP, spoke on Friday afternoon in support of a Bill brought by fellow Tory Selaine Saxby.
Ms Saxby’s Animal Welfare Bill has the backing of the Government and proposes that it should be illegal to bring puppies and kittens under the age of six months into the country.
The Bill would also make it illegal to import dogs that have had their ears cropped.
It is already illegal in the UK to crop a dog’s ears, but some dog owners send their pets abroad for cropping. Others buy foreign puppies whose ears have already been cropped.
Mr Hudson told the House that children’s films like Up and DC League of Super-Pets, as well as “popular culture” and “celebrity culture”, leave people unaware that dogs with cropped ears are “horrifically mutilated”.
He has represented Penrith in Cumbria since 2019 and is the only veterinary surgeon sitting in the House of Commons.
The Pixar movie Up features an evil Doberman pinscher with cropped ears as a main antagonist. Of the film, Mr Hudson said: “If you look really closely at the dogs in that film, many of them are cropped.
“So if people are going to the cinema with their kids, and seeing this on the big screen, that looks normal and that is wrong.”
People therefore “don’t realise that ear cropping is not normal” and so “want to have those dogs”, Mr Hudson continued.
He added that “we need to educate people that these dogs have been horrifically mutilated”.
Ear cropping, along with tail docking, has been illegal in the UK – save for medical reasons – since 2006. Both are referred to as “mutilation” in the Animal Welfare Act.
The act was strengthened in 2021 to punish those who crop their dogs’ ears with an unlimited fine or up to five years in prison.
Yet the practice is on the rise. More than a thousand cases of ear cropping have been reported to the RSPCA since 2020.
The trend has been linked to a tendency for celebrities and influencers to share photos of pet dogs with cropped ears on social media.
In 2018 footballer Marcus Rashford posted a photo of his Italian mastiff, Saint.
The image indicated that the dog’s ears had recently been cropped, though there is no suggestion that Mr Rashford broke the law by having the mastiff’s ears cropped in the UK.
Love Island star Scott Thomas and Jack Fincham of Made in Chelsea fame have both faced backlash after sharing photos of their pet dogs which appear to have cropped ears.
If it passes, the Animal Welfare Bill’s victory will be that pets are not sold or traded as objects, Ms Saxby said.
Friday saw the second reading of the Bill, which has been touted as a crackdown on puppy smuggling.
Heavily pregnant animals would also be barred from import and limits placed on the number of animals a person can travel with.
The legislation considers cats, dogs and ferrets, all of which “are more than just property, they are family”, Ms Saxby added.
Ms Saxby has a brown labrador called Henry, and Mr Hudson owns a black Labrador called Juno.
It was also revealed in the course of the debate that Victoria Prentis, the Attorney General, has a pet ferret called Roulette.