Guide
Ear Cropping, and Why Mine Are Not Cropped
What the procedure involves, what it costs, what it does and doesn’t do for the dog, and the position I take.
I don’t crop, and every puppy here leaves with natural ears. Ear cropping is surgical removal of part of the ear flap, done at roughly nine to twelve weeks, followed by weeks or months of posting and taping. It’s cosmetic. There’s no health benefit that stands up, and the common justification, that it prevents ear infections, isn’t supported by evidence.
What the procedure actually is
The outer part of each ear flap is cut away under general anesthetic and the remaining edges are sutured. It’s usually done between nine and twelve weeks old. Afterwards the ears are posted, meaning taped to a support, and reposted repeatedly over a period that ranges from a few weeks to several months depending on the style and the individual dog.
It costs somewhere between two hundred and eight hundred dollars depending on the vet and the crop style, plus the aftercare, plus the anesthetic risk that comes with any surgery on a young animal. The posting isn’t a formality, it’s weeks of handling a sore ear, and if it isn’t done properly the result doesn’t stand.
If you want it done later that’s your decision and your vet’s, not mine to police. I simply won’t do it to a puppy that can’t consent and can’t be asked.
The medical case for it, examined
The argument usually offered is that cropped ears prevent infections and injuries. It’s worth taking seriously and it doesn’t hold up well.
On infections: ear disease in this breed is overwhelmingly driven by allergy, not by airflow. A dog with atopic skin disease gets ear infections because the ear canal lining is inflamed as part of the same condition, and removing part of the flap doesn’t change that. The major veterinary bodies that have looked at this describe cropping as a cosmetic procedure without demonstrated medical benefit, and several national veterinary associations oppose it outright.
On injuries: torn ears are a genuine risk in dogs doing work that no companion bully does. For a household dog it isn’t a meaningful risk to prevent with surgery.
On the other side of the ledger: general anesthetic in a nine-week-old puppy, real postoperative pain, weeks of taping, and a possible cost to communication. Dogs use ear position to signal, and there’s a reasonable argument that removing part of the flap removes part of the signal, which matters most in exactly the situation where you want a dog read correctly by another dog.
So why is it so common in this breed?
Because of what it looks like. The cropped silhouette is the one people picture when they picture the breed, and a cropped dog photographs as sharper and more angular. That’s the whole of the reason, and I’d rather write it down than dress it up as health.
It’s worth knowing that this isn’t a global norm. Cropping is banned or heavily restricted across most of Europe, Australia and much of the rest of the world, and those countries have the same breeds without the procedure. It persists in the United States by convention rather than necessity.
None of that makes it illegal here and none of it makes people who crop bad owners. It does mean the case for it’s aesthetic, and an aesthetic case is a thin reason to do surgery on an animal that can’t be asked.
My position, and what it means for you
Puppies leave here with natural ears at nine to twelve weeks. I don’t crop, I don’t arrange it, and I don’t put a puppy through a general anesthetic for a look.
If you want it done afterwards, that’s a conversation between you and a veterinarian. I’d ask three things of you. Use a licensed veterinarian and never anybody offering it cheaply outside a clinic, which does happen and which is exactly as bad as it sounds. Check the law where you live, because some jurisdictions restrict it. And do it because you want to, with the knowledge that it’s cosmetic, rather than because somebody told you it prevents infections.
A natural-eared bully isn’t a lesser dog or a lesser example of the breed. The ears don’t affect temperament, health, structure or anything else the dog is judged on in a life. Mine are $700 the same as every other puppy here, natural ears included.
Every puppy here, natural ears, $700
Ten available now in Sedona, Arizona. Ask me anything you like about how they’re raised.