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What is the ruling on cropping the ears and docking the tail of a guard dog to make it more fierce and intimidating to a thief?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

It is not permissible to keep dogs except for guarding or hunting. Whoever keeps them for other purposes will have a Qirat or two Qirats deducted from their reward each day. It is not permissible to dock a dog's tail or crop its ears for beautification or to make it aggressive, as this involves harming the animal, mutilating it, altering Allah's creation, and wasting money. The Qur'an indicates the prohibition of cutting the ears of livestock, as Allah recounts Satan's words: "And I will surely mislead them and I will surely incite desires in them and I will surely command them so they will cut the ears of livestock and I will surely command them so they will change the creation of Allah." This act is forbidden because it is an alteration of Allah's creation or a mutilation of the animal, and this is from the work of Satan. In addition, these procedures are extravagance and wastefulness, spending money in an improper way.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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