With circumcision rates for human babies dropping across Australia, one clinic on the New South Wales Central Coast is hoping to fill the void in their revenue by offering the service to pet owners.

“It’s embarrassing when we have friends over for a classy dinner, and there’s Bouncer rolling around on his back showing all that extra skin”, says Sharon – the clinic’s first dog circumcision customer.

“We are starting with dogs, but we can foresee a demand from owners of other animals. It’s only natural that circumcised pet owners would want their pets to look like themselves” say’s the clinic’s owner, Dr Nicholas.

Darren agrees. As a multiple trophy winner in ‘owners who look like their pets’ competitions, he has often felt a little sheepish accepting the awards, knowing that Bundy is actually quite different in one important area.

“I’d consider getting him done”, he says. “It’s not just so that I feel more confident in the competitions, but also because we’ve had a few awkward moments when he has walked in on me in the shower. I’ve never be able to find the right words to explain why we are different down there, so I figure it’s easier to just give him the chop.”

Dr Nicholas also highlights that there other benefits in addition to the purely cosmetic side of things, including a lower chance of getting the foreskin caught in leads, religious considerations and the ease of washing the pet.

While not commonly used in Australia, the clinic plans to import a ‘circumstraint‘ from the United States, to restrain the dogs during the procedure. For human babies, a strong nurse usually leans on the child, pinning his arms and splayed legs. But with a dog, there is the risk that it may bite the assisting nurse.

Dr Nicholas explains. “Just as when human babies scream and try to break free, we are expecting a similar reaction from the dogs. Most people think that this is a reaction to having the end of their penis cut off, but no, we understand this to be just a reaction to being held down…we think.”

Asked if he was worried if some might consider the procedure cruel and unethical, Dr Nicholas assured us that “everybody knows that puppies feel less pain that fully matured dogs, and it’s hard to argue that it’s unethical to do this to an animal when we do the same thing to thousands of human babies every year”.

“Besides, it’s the pet owner’s business and nobody else’s.”