I think the ear clipping probably went back to ear infections or something.
My grandfather always had dobermans and they were nothing but great dogs, but their power is scary. When my extended family went through the toddler phase (my mom has 7 siblings, so you can imagine the number of cousins) the toddlers would inevitably fall on a sleeping doberman and the doberman would snap out of instinct, but would pull back mid-snap as soon as it saw that it was a kid.
as soon as I figured that out, I started throwing toddlers at the sleeping dogs.