Detroit Free Press
March 7, 2008
By Bill Laitner

Caretakers and animal-control officers at the Oakland Pet Adoption Center were aghast this week when a 10-week-old Labrador pup came in with it's ears badly infected and constricted by rubber bands.

Now, they're issuing a plea to the public, including those operating the illegal, underground traffic in fighting dogs: Please do not try to use rubber bands to cut off the blood circulation to a dog's ears, hoping that they will just drop off someday with no harm to the overall health of the dog.

Instead, those who try such a mutilating tactic run a high risk of causing major, even fatal, infections to their dogs, officials said.

"It turns out someone tried to home-crop this dog's ears," said Kara Beyerlein, communications director for Oakland County's animal shelter, which is two miles northwest of the Palace of Auburn Hills.

"People do this to make a dog look meaner or use it in fighting," she said.  The owner of this pup, a stray found in Pontiac, may have thought it was a pit bull, since Labrador Retrievers are not fighting dogs, Beyerlein said on Thursday.

A county veterinarian removed the dog's ears on Wednesday, within hours of the dog's arrival, and now the female pup is recovering with antibiotics and pain medicine, Beyerlein said.

She added: "It's just a sweet dog.  It's going to a foster home in a little bit, and from there we'll try to find a family who can really love it" - even without ears.

The manager of the Oakland County Pet Adoption Center, Larry Obrecht, said he was "absolutely stunned and disgusted that people are doing this kind of thing."

The black Labrador pup was found wandering on North Perry Street in Pontiac, "and Pontiac's animal-control officer caught it and brought it in here," Obrecht said on Thursday afternoon.

The surgical alteration of dogs and cats is not unheard of, although often frowned on by animal-rights advocates, to prepare some animals for show rings or hunting, Obrecht said.

"There are safe ways to do this kind of thing.  You can do this kind of cropping, and also tail docking, in a vet's office.  They put the dog under, and then they put bandages on it to heal.

"But this was home cropping.  But we actually have had a cat come in a few years ago and someone had cut its ear off with scissors.  Can you believe people do this kind of thing?" Obrecht said.

Among owners of pit bulls who fight their dogs, "We hear that they take the ears off so the other dogs can't grab on.  We see it on pit bulls all the time," he said.  The county must destroy all dogs that it finds that have been trained to fight or be vicious, he said.

Luckily, the Lab pup seems to be sweet tempered and unaffected psychologically by its apparently traumatic life so far.  When it was brought in on Wednesday, "We cut the rubber bands off and one ear literally fell off.  The ear had literally rotted off," Obrecht said.

He's a crusty-sounding former county commissioner - known for his support of a privately funded campaign in Oakland County to spay or neuter every stray animal, in the hope of reducing the population of unwanted pets.  He said he fears that the Lab pup will be hard to adopt.

"Now, this dog is going to look a little weird.  It's going to grow up without any ears.  But she's just a doll.  We really hope someone takes it," said Obrecht.

He said he at first hesitated to share photos of the pup.  But on Thursday afternoon, he released the photos, deciding that they should be published.  His goal?

To shock people and hopefully discourage the practice of binding animal ears with rubber bands.

By Friday, the dog already had been placed with a foster family in Lake Orion, Obrecht said.

"It's a delightful little pup.  We're grateful that its temperament wasn't damaged by this at all," he said, adding: "Now, we're going to try to find a family willing to take this dog as their pet" - even without ears.

That may not be a problem.  As of Friday afternoon, the animal shelter had received more than 30 calls from people who want the dog, ears or no ears.

"It's great," Obrecht said.