RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Officials with Richmond Animal Care and Control (RACC) are urging the public to help them track down the person or people who are responsible for dozens of illegal and painful acts on animals, known as ear cropping. Cropping is illegal in Virginia — unless the procedure is being performed by a licensed veterinarian.
“Once the animal gets as it gets older, there’s more blood vessels, there’s more pain, there’s more trauma. And it just it just you know, it just expands and how terrible it can be,” said Rob Leinberger, the Deputy Director for Richmond Animal Care and Control.
More pain and more trauma is how RACC is describing what dozens of dogs are enduring after having their ears illegally cropped.
Cropping, also known as docking, is when part of the animal’s outer ear is cut into and possibly removed or severely trimmed as well as parts of all of the external flaps of an animal’s ear. The procedure may sometime call for temporarily taping up or “bracing” what’s left of the ears in order to get them to point upright.