Plastic Surgery for Pets?
In an episode of the plastic surgery drama Nip/Tuck, a man brings his show dog to McNamara/Troy for some cosmetic tweaking. The doctors declined to perform plastic surgery on a dog, and the job was taken up by a less scrupulous surgeon. I remember wondering if the show was mocking the industry or if plastic surgery for pets was real. Apparently, it is.
The demand for pet plastic surgery is particularly high in Brazil, where one veterinarian has been performing aesthetic procedures on man’s best friend for 15 years. The Sao Paolo vet extols the benefits of plastic surgery for pets—from Botox for Shar-Peis to mammary gland tucks on post-pregnancy show dogs.
And despite prohibitions from the American Kennel Club (the organization that sets the guidelines for breeds on the show-dog circuit), not to mention objections from breeders and animal rights activists, pet cosmetic surgery continues to gain popularity in the United States.
I have to ask why? Is it really important to have attractive pets?
The Brazilian doctor argues that the more attractive the pet is, the better the owner-pet relationship. This, to me, seems absurd. We love our pets because they provide us with unconditional love and companionship. Not because they’re pretty. Or because they can win a show.
I’m not saying that aesthetic enhancement can’t be a good thing. In fact, I think it very much can be. But only for people who are capable of making their own decisions.
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March 30th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
In the three years I’ve written exclusively about cosmetic and plastic surgery, I’ve been able to document the following examples of plastic surgery on animals. (I am NOT making any of this up!) Please draw your own conclusions, I just gather the facts.
** Farm and agricultural shows Down Under have noticed some of their cattle breeders are getting a leg up in judging by having cosmetic surgery done on their prize cattle and cash cows. So, the newest rules drafted by Tasmania’s Agricultural Show Council prevent any breeder from putting his cows under the cosmetic surgeon’s knife to try and bag blue ribbons and other prizes.
“We want the animals to look natural,” says a spokesman.
And what type cosmetic surgery is required for large farm animals like cattle? Surely, we’re not talking breast enhancements?
“We’re asking our people not to pump up the cows’ stomachs to make them look more hefty,” says the spokesman. “And we don’t want the cows teats sealed or glued.”
It may not sound like a big deal to you but, on the farm, nothing trashes bovine beauty like leaking milk.
West Hollywood Votes to Ban Animal Plastic Surgery
In the Golden State, if you live in West Hollywood or San Francisco, you may soon lose one of humankind’s most treasured freedoms – giving cosmetic surgery to your pet.
Regular subscribers to CosmeticSurgery.Com NEWS will recall how cosmetic surgery on diary cows was outlawed in New Zealand. The procedures gave the heefers an unfair leg up in bovine beauty contests.
Now, the anti-rejuvenation surgery trend has hit West Hollywood’s city fathers and mothers who fear not nose jobs but snout jobs and want to ban plastic surgery for cats and dogs.
Of course, cosmetic surgery in the pet world does not resemble the type of plastic surgery “pet guardians” have performed on their human selves. In the four-footed world, ear cropping, tail docking, debarking, defanging and other forms of surgical treatments, done for noncurative reasons, would be banned.
The actual law, which could go into effect in March, 2005, may add on some language preventing other, unspecified vanity procedures on pets.
Said one of the city fathers while arguing the motion before the city council: “Somebody has to be first. Animal welfare is something West Hollywood feels strongly about.”
Actually somebody already has been first. Back in 2000, the San Francisco Commission of Animal Control and Welfare also stove to end cosmetic surgery on pets. The reasoning? Humans may choose to have plastic surgery but animals cannot.
The measure did not pass but the city did pass language demanding that the cruel phrase “pet owner” be replaced in all city documents with the more animal-friendly phrase, “pet guardian.” Moreover, the same legislation decrees that strays no longer be housed in “dog pounds” or “shelters.” Instead, lost dogs and cats are supposed to be put into “animal apartments.”
Whatever the preferred phrasing, it looks like the old saw about pets looking like their owners will no longer be true.
Unless more animal owner start thinking their pets look like a real dog.
Finally, Kangaroo-Actor Gets Plastic Surgery
In the film industry, your face is your fortune. So in Hollywood, those faces are often augmented, nipped, tucked and otherwise surgically rejuvenated to look as good as possible on film.
And so it was with great alarm when the owner of Feznick, a 75-pound gray kangaroo, found his fledging marsupial star had been bitten in the left upper lip, leaving a less than dazzling smile. You see, Feznick resides at a farm for Hollywood animal-actors and was injured when he stuck his snout under a fence where a neighbor, a wolf that appears in commercials and films, took exception to the intrusion, chomped onto Feznick’s snout and took off a bit of his lip, leaving the kangaroo with a toothy sneer.
You probably won’t see Feznick’s name in lights any time soon but he does have an interesting resume. In addition to hopping around as featured performer on opening night of the movie, “Kangaroo Jack,” Feznick often presses the flesh, working at corporate events.
In February, 2006, Veterinarian Peregrine Wolff (yes, really, her true name) offered the use of her facility so a plastic surgeon could repair Feznick’s lip.
“It looks like people surgery in a way, except the patient is a little hairier,” said a surgical nurse.
According to the plastic surgeon, the lip was a bit more difficult than a human lip repair because a Kangaroo has a natural cleft that runs up into the nose. But the surgeon made do and closed the gap with 25 stitches.
Of course, the whole episode had a made-in-Hollywood ending with Feznick’s smile being fully restored after his surgery healed.
It wasn’t the first time Dr. Wolff (who was born with that name) hosted an animal actor in need of rejuvenation surgery. A trained Grizzly Bear that appeared in a widely seen Super Bowl beer commercial once suffered a fractured canine tooth and needed his own smile buffed up.
And, yes, both will be ready for their close-ups, whenever Mr. DeMille wishes.