Beauty is in the eye of the owner: animal cosmetic surgery and why cosmetic cruelty is not a la mode

© DR Thomas Labs

Aestheticism is the late eighteenth century art movement that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone. While we no longer presume that someone beautiful exists only to be beautiful, Ellen Sinkman, the author of The Psychology of beauty, explains that the desire to be beautiful is programmed into people. But, now society’s desire for the filtered beauty many of us see on social media has spilled over from looking back at ourselves in the mirror to the gaze we now cast upon our four-legged companions. Globally, the pet grooming product market was previously valued at $3,872 million in 2017, but is now projected to reach $5,488 million by 2025. Our search for the pulchritudinous pet has become more toxic than simply perfuming our pooches or clipping our kitties into lion lookalikes. Instead, beauty, rather than in the eyes of the beholder, is now in the hands of a pet cosmetologist and cosmetic surgeon. But, at what price does this misaligned desire for beauty come for the puppies and kittens we welcome into our homes and hearts and why is it carried out despite legislation in place to prevent it?

The ear is the avenue to the heart: Ear-Cropping of puppies:

While Voltaire may have meant that words spoken into the ear are the way to find yourself a place in someone’s heart, it seems now that the physical appearance of the ear of many dog breeds has become the avenue to the heart, via a detour to the eye.

Ear cropping is most frequently carried out on guarding breeds, to enhance their domineering physical appearance. Often it is seen on Mastiffs, Dobermans and American Bulldogs, although many people may not realise this is not their natural physical appearance, due to how common the cruel procedure is. The procedure involves removing the pinna, the external and drooping part of a dog’s ear. The ear is then splintered upright to a hard taped surface for 7-12 weeks while the muscle hardens into position for perpetuity. Often the procedure will take place between 7-12 weeks old and while many claim it is not a painful procedure undertaken with anaesthetic, the reality, knowing that many breeders (despite the introduction of Lucy’s Law) are unscrupulous and seeking only profit, often undertake the procedure themselves and without any form of pain-relief. The RSPCA has seen cases involving kitchen knives and scissors and says that in "underground" procedures the animals are often not given anaesthetic pain relief.

Despite being illegal in England and Wales, unless for medical reasons, under Section 5 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006, The RSPCA, PETA, Battersea Cats and Dogs Home and the British Veterinary Association (the “BVA”) have all noted an “alarming rise” in dogs with cropped ears. Reports have increased from only 14 in 2015, to 47 in 2019 and then doubled in 2020 to over 101; while the numbers seem small, they represent a 621% rise and are only the reported cases. Battersea Dogs and Cats Home says that it took in just one dog with cropped ears in 2016, compared to 12 in 2020. Their concern is that this is due to celebrity and “influencer” influences, the very individuals people perceive to be ideal standards of beauty having these doctored dogs, this creates a desire for similar aesthetics in their audiences’ dogs. When celebrities post photos of their cropped ear companions, although they themselves may not have known about their endorsement of a cruel procedure, they create a market for continued animal abuse.

With ear cropping being legal in Europe and America, there are legal loopholes that allow puppies with cropped ears to be legally imported into the UK and sold within the UK, essentially circumventing the law and acting as a “smokescreen” for the underground ear-cropping that takes place in the UK. However, Jordan Shelley, a UK dog trainer, has launched a petition that has been debated in Parliament this year, which would ban the importing of ear-cropped dogs, signalling to unscrupulous breeders that there is no place for such practices in the UK and to educate consumers that ear-cropped dogs are not natural and that this standard of beauty is wholly artificial, but also cruel.

You can help by reporting any ear-cropped dogs or puppies to your local veterinary practice, which in turn may report cases to their Local Authority Animal Health Function which are Trading Standards or the Environmental Health Services. Alternatively, you can call the RSPCA via 0300 1234 999. Join the RSPCA’s “Cut the Crop” petition and help protect dogs from the painful, illegal, mutiliation they suffer at the hands of misguided aesthetic standards. Similarly, with the introduction of the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021, the penalties for abuse of animal welfare, which ear-cropping is as it serves no welfare benefits unless undertaken by a licensed veterinarian for medical purposes, have increased and you should be encouraged to report individuals under this legislation.

© BVA

(De-)clawing their way into our hearts: declawing of kittens:

Onychectomy, more commonly known as de-clawing, is an operation undertaken to remove all or part of the distal phalanges, or the end bones of an animal’s toes. Due to the fact kitten’s claws develop from the germinal tissue within their third phalanx, amputating their distal phalanges, or their end bone, is the only way to remove their claws entirely. This is often done with guillotine clippers or a scapel and often without pain-relief by unwitting, uncaring or unaware breeders. This procedure is normally undertaken to improve the physical appearance of a cat’s foot, so that its claws do not protrude or extend, but also to maintain the physical aestheticism of their human’s home, as their furniture will no longer be pocked with claw marks.

The de-clawing of kittens is an extremely painful process, it leaves them unable to properly display their usual behaviours and can leave them vulnerable to attack from other cats, as they lose their ability to defend themselves. The removal of this soft tissue at a young age will be incredibly painful and can lead to life long and painful bone problems, infections and back pain. Dr. Nicholas Dodman of Tufts University, who has written several books on canine and feline "psychology," says of declawing that it "fits the dictionary definition of mutilation to a tee. Words such as deform, disfigure, disjoint, and dismember all apply to this surgery. Partial digital amputation is so horrible that it has been employed for torture of prisoners of war, and in veterinary medicine, the clinical procedure serves as a model of severe pain for testing the efficacy of anaesthetic drugs”.

In the UK, the declawing of cats has been outlawed since 2006 under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and carries a fine of up to £20,000 if convicted. While it is an uncommon practice, it still does take place despite the pain that it will cause the kitten or cat that undergoes such a treatment.

© PETA

Docked to our heart’s content: tail docking of dogs:

Tail docking is the removal of all or most of a dog’s tail sometimes for medical reasons, but most often for cosmetic reasons. Tail docking usually takes place on puppies between the ages of 2-10 days old without general or local anaesthesia. If done by a veterinarian specifically for medical purposes, the tail will be clamped with anaesthesia a short way from the last vertebrate and then surgically removed. However, it has been found that many breeders dock puppies themselves using a method known as “banding”, which simply stops the blood flow to the tail and results in dry gangrene and results in horrific pain, the same pain as it would cause a 2-10 day old baby should you have slammed their finger in a car door and simply left them until it fell off. Puppies undergoing any method of tail-docking squeal and cry, yet advocates assert that the newborn's nervous system is unable to feel the pain.

As World Animal Foundation notes: “proponents of tail docking claim that their favourite breeds "often" have their tails damaged while hunting. No statistics or percentages of dogs so damaged are given. However, explicit photos of such injuries are prominently displayed in their literature and web sites. This vague potential risk for future tail injury theoretically justifies docking the tail of every single puppy of traditionally docked breeds.” Similarly, Labradors and Retrievers are working and retrieving dogs, however we do not see these dogs without their wagging tails. WAF comments: “Spaniels have long, heavy, furry ears that appear more hazardous in thorny, brushy terrain or water than a long tail. Spaniels are also notorious for severe, chronic ear infections. Does it make any sense that they are allowed to keep their pendulous ears, but not their tails?” It is clear that the procedure is merely one of cosmetic preference amongst breeders.

The Animal Welfare Act 2006 contains a general ban on the tail docking of dogs and some limited exceptions relating to working dogs and medical treatments, however, it only applies in England and Wales, the identification and certification of “working dogs” is poorly policed and differ entirely between England and Wales, which means that the law abounds with loopholes that leave puppies at serious risk. The exemptions allow certain types of working dog to have their tails docked by a veterinary surgeon. The dog has to be no more than 5 days old and the veterinary surgeon must certify that he or she has seen evidence that the dog is likely to work in one of the specified areas, but this is utterly ineffective given that puppies imported from abroad with dodgy docks are legally able to be imported and sold in the UK, which perpetuates the undercover and underground abuse that British breeders still perform on poor puppies.

Conclusion:

Despite the legislation existing which is meant to protect animals from the surgeon’s knife and the blanchiment des capitaux which seems to be so a la mode these days, it is clearly rendered almost entirely ineffective at its one job by the fact that legal imports of artificially altered animals and legal tender of them is allowed and creates a seriously damaging cycle of botched cosmetic surgeries in the UK’s underground breeder world. What is clear is that cosmetic surgery on animals is cruel, completely unnecessary and selfish. We should love animals as they are and accept them for their floppy ears, scratchy claws and wagging tails, rather than doctoring them into some absurd aesthetic simply existing for the sake of being beautiful, when they are so much more and deserve so much more.