The rise of plastic surgery for pooches

Brutus had a problem with one of his ears. It drooped. He wasn’t really bothered because Brutus is a dog – a mini schnauzer – and he thought his ears were just fine. But Anita Alt had other ideas.

Anita, who is from São Paulo, Brazil, is dogged in her devotion to mini schnauzers. She runs a canine grooming service aimed at mini schnauzers and their indulgent owners. “It’s for people whose dogs are part of the family, who share their beds or go for drives with them in a child seat.”

She also dabbles as a breeder. Brutus was a sleek, lean grey puppy with huge earning potential — but he had a droopy ear. So Anita turned to her long-time vet. He offered Brutus much the same advice a Beverly Hills dermatologist tells every starlet on her 22nd birthday: it’s time for Botox.

The vet used the muscle relaxant to reposition the dog’s ear. “As if by magic, Brutus’s ears were good as new,” says Anita. “On the same day, he was ready to participate in shows.” Brutus went on to be a champion several times over.

Twelve years later, he’s still beautiful. “He looks like a puppy!” says Anita. These days the techniques that can be used to turn pets from ugly ducklings to ‘Best in Show’ are increasingly common in America. In fact, the procedures available for four-legged patients mirror the most common human operations.

Plumped up by a constant stream of treats, Pumpkin, a chihuahua from Florida, grew too fat to walk so a vet performed liposuction.

Another dog, Bode, in Los Angeles, was slobbering messily thanks to a loose lower lip – so the vet cinched his face tighter with a few stitches. One of Brutus’s sons had an unsightly scar on his back caused by a skin infection. Surgery artfully concealed it. Ozzy Osbourne paid for not one but two, facelifts for his dog – the second after the skin grew back and impeded breathing – while plenty of show dogs, sagging after giving birth, have been sent for breast lifts to make them arena-worthy again.

‘Why not be beautiful?’

In the world of four-legged nip-tuckery, one vet more than any other has championed and pioneered cutting-edge techniques: Dr Edgard Brito. With his silver hair and goatee, Dr Brito resembles a suave maître d’. He speaks English with a rich Portuguese lilt. “A dog isn’t beautiful with broken ears. Why not be beautiful? It’s very important,” he says.

Dr Brito has performed thousands of cosmetic procedures on pets, each usually costing between £300 and £600 (Dh1,675 and Dh3,350). He has happily tweaked the ears of his own Doberman, Urano, and applied the filler Metacril to the eye socket of another of Anita’s schnauzers, Tutsi, averting ingrowing eyelashes.

Dr Brito’s work isn’t limited to dogs, although they form the bulk of his patients. He has used his ear-reforming technique on a stallion breed, Mangalarga, to help the horses retain their value. The bill for this procedure is more than £6,000. Dr Brito is often hired by TV and film crews to make sure animals are ready for close-ups. And he has even treated a lion with an eye tumour. Dr Brito monitors human operations to see the procedures he might use for his animal patients.

His latest advance: a silicone wedge that is inserted into a flaccid ear for several months, long enough for the cartilage to reshape and naturally stiffen. It is then removed, leaving no evidence of intervention – essential, since pet plastic surgery is frowned upon by show judges.

But Dr Brito rebuffs criticism: “If the pet is beautiful, the owner is happy and wants to show their pet to their friends.” And he claims dogs look for symmetry in the faces of their mates, much like humans. Urano’s floppy ear risked leaving him loveless and, as a doting owner, Dr Brito could never allow that.

Most of Dr Brito’s work is purely cosmetic, but some surgical interventions improve vital signs. Pumpkin, the chubby chihuahua, faced an early death from obesity. Animal facelifts and nose jobs often remedy two conditions common in pure-bred dogs. Entropion – where droopy skin turns eyelids inwards and makes lashes scratch the cornea – occurs regularly with loose-skinned breeds like Shar Peis. Tighten the face, and the problem is averted. Flat-faced breeds are frequently brachycephalic, where the soft palate in the mouth is squished and blocks the airway. A nose job allows the dog to breathe better.

These medically endorsed procedures are regularly conducted in the UK. Insurer Petplan paid out £1 million for nose surgeries last year and covered treatment for more than 484 cases of entropion in the same period. Nonetheless, the kennel community was horrified when a Crufts champion Pekingese, singled out as a superb example of the breed’s flat face, was accused of having undergone a facelift to ease its breathing. Disconcertingly, the focus of the horror was on the subterfuge. Nobody queried why an animal was bred to such unhealthy extremes.

Comfort is key

In the UAE, plastic surgery on pets for purely cosmetic reasons hasn’t caught on yet. “We carry out corrective surgery here for animals’ well-being,” says veterinary surgeon Dominik Saurek of Dubai and Polo and Equestrian Club. “To me, the comfort of the pet is of utmost importance and I would not carry out a procedure just to please an owner who wants his dog to look a certain way.”

The majority of his patients are dogs born with facial features that cause breathing problems or have frequent skin infections.

“I widen the nostrils in breeds such as English bulldogs and pugs, and reduce the skin folds under the lips in mastiffs, which cause them to salivate and results in frequent skin infections. I also reduce the folds on the nose of French bulldogs – these surgeries are necessary to help them,” says Dr Saurek.

But such surgeries are infrequent. Unlike in the US, where pet plastic surgery is a booming business, Dr Saurek performs between five and ten operations per year and they’re all to help the health of the dog, not to improve its looks.

“I am sure, like in the rest of the world, very soon my clients will demand Botox, liposuction and facelifts for their ageing beagles, cocker spaniels and German shepherds,” he says. “But I can’t think of performing those surgeries as the well-being of the pet is my top priority. Why put it through such ordeals just to look good?”

While some may scoff at spending money to improve an animal’s appearance, pet lovers in Europe and America say it proves how deep their love is.

“That’s what dogs crave,” canine stylist Anais Hayden told ABC News. “It’s about attention.”