cutting length of tails

Question
My toy poodles is just 10 days away from giving birth... I need to know what length to tell the vet to cut the tails on the baby puppies? (per AKC lengths so if I want to SHOW the puppy, it won't get disqualified for having cut the tail either too short or leave it too long??) I hope you can help me, I'm really getting frustrated, no one knows the length here...Do I need to get this information from AKC?? What do you think??

Answer
Hello Carri,
When we dock our Poodles tails, we always take 1/3 off the end of the tail, leaving about 2/3rds left.  If the 1/3 is at a joint, you can decide whether to go on the one side or the other of the joint.  The tails will look long, but they will grow into them.  You can take just a bit more off than 1/3 and still be ok, but don't go much shorter than 1/3.  There are things you can do to help the tail look longer or shorter when you are grooming the dog, so don't be concerned if you take too much or too little off.  Most Vets will want to take about 1/2 off, but that is too much.  Anything between 1/3 and not over 1/2 should be just right.

I hope this has helped you some.  If you have other questions for me about this or other Poodle questions in general, please feel free to ask.

Thanks for using AllExperts.com,
Kim