Meet Dr. Edgard Brito, Cosmetic Surgeon to the Dog Stars

He has done thousands of procedures, creating perfect dog-show-quality specimens. Ugh!

Most of us have an uneasy relationship with dogs and plastic surgery -- the tradition of docking the tails of show dogs like the Pembroke Welsh Corgi and the Wire Fox Terrier isn't something we like to think about, but at least the dogs are otherwise well cared for.

But how about cosmetic surgery to simply make the dog look better? More like a perfect specimen of the breed?

Meet Dr. Edgard Brito of São Paulo, Brazil, the world’s pre-eminent cosmetic surgeon for dogs. This is what he does. And he does it a lot.

He told Businessweek that his career took its "cosmetic turn" after he began breeding Doberman Pinschers as a hobby.

“I started to play with plastic surgery and began to look for the correct ears,” he says. “It’s important for us as show-dog breeders that dogs have the right expression, the correct proportions.”

How does one "play around" with plastic surgery on dogs? Take Brutus, Brito's first big success.

“One of his ears was in a peculiar place, and wrong, so that was the first time I used Botox to put less tension in the muscle of that ear,” he says. “I use Botox and Restylane to fix some broken cartilage. It’s a very good technique, you don’t need to cut the animal, only injections.”

And it worked. It worked so well that Brutus went on to be a dog-show champion, and today he lives the life of a stud, breeding.

As for Brito, he went on to do plastic surgery on "thousands of other animals, usually costing $500 to $1,000 each time."

He has developed a procedure that "permanently corrects excessive floppiness in ears" through the use of a silicone wedge inserted in the ears that reshapes cartilage. Then the wedge comes out. 

No evidence remains of the procedure, which makes Brito a favorite among dog-show participants.

“You need to use a technique that the judges can’t feel or see,” he says.

Brito is immune to criticism by this point, as you might expect -- imagine how much criticism this guy must have faced. But he certainly is a little tone deaf about it. Witness this quote: “Why not be beautiful? It’s very important. If the pet is beautiful, the owner is happy and wants to show their pet to their friends.”

If the pet is beautiful, the owner is happy? 

What a fool. 

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