Facelifts for Dogs
You need an eyelift? Get those wrinkles out? If you’re a Shar Pei, it’s not because you’re showing your age. It’s not vanity, and you’re not Joan Rivers. It’s serious stuff, and if you don’t get it done, you’re quite likely to go blind. So an Australian grandmother is using her life savings to get the job done.
Because of their inbred wrinkly skin and the floppy folds around their eyes, eight of 10 Shar Peis have eye problems. People buy these cute-looking dogs from breeders who simply don’t tell them the problems they’re going to run into.
Melbourne grandmother Amanda Booth is president of the Shar Pei Rescue group in Melbourne. And she’s using her personal savings to pay $16,000 a year to rescue and re-home dogs who are dumped when the people who bought them discover that their dog is going blind.
Veterinarian Scot Plummer, who works with Booth, explained that the heavy skin on their head pushes the dogs’ eyelids in, causing their eyelashes to scratch their cornea, leading to blindness.
In the “eyelift” surgery, Plummer cuts skin from around the eyes to lifts the eyelashes away. It also gives the appearance of having had a nip and tuck.
The two dogs in the photo, Rumple and Stiltskin, had the surgery after being given up when they were just over a year old. They are recovering from the surgery and will soon be ready for good new homes.