Where to find the best ear cropping vet in California?

Ear cropping is a surgery, but also an art. As a good surgeon – the vet should be able to make a clean cut and do the stitches right; but as an artist – the vet has to give the ears a suitable shape, and keep both ears even.

I got my first puppy Argo at 3 months old full stock – tail and ears. It felt a bit strange at first to see a doberman with a long tail and hanging ears, but I got used to it pretty quickly. Also, I thought it was too late to dock his tail. And it definitely made no sense to crop his ears, but keep the tail long. Not carrying for cropped ears is so much easier. But later on we had difficulties with conformation shows. US is behind in a “natural” look for dobermans. We had very limited success and eventually quit conformation.

My second puppy Nitro arrived with docked tail and I saw a possibility to go back to conformation. I’ve decided to crop his ears also because the cropped look seemed to suit Nitro’s temperament.

I’ve learned about ear cropping vets from the AKC crowd, and it made sense to me. Pure bred dogs are not as popular in the US as in Europe. And only fraction of them require ear cropping. Veterinarians don’t have much experience. Hence, all those horrible stories and terrible ear crops on the internet.

I’ve heard from several local doberman handlers/breeders about a vet in Southern California. I look no further.

The vet is Dr. Jezbera in Riverside Animal Hospital. I didn’t find a web page, but here is Riverside Animal Hospital yelp page. The outcome was as expected. Here is my review for this hospital:

My puppy was nearly 3 months old when I called Riverside Animal Hospital to schedule a procedure. The next available appointment they had was over 4 weeks away, but they squeezed us in in a week and a half. It is better to crop ears before puppy is 3 months old.

The doctor was attentive, seemed thoughtful and knowledgeable. He explained the difference between variety of crops suitable to a doberman and helped make a decision. I picked up my puppy in about 3 hours with the new ear-do. The stitches on the ears were all perfectly straight and aligned. As promised – my puppy’s ears didn’t get infected or swollen and healed properly. I removed the stitches myself (read my article How to post cropped ears) and the rest was up to me.

Seemingly, Dr. Jezbera is a go-to vet for ear cropping for a lot of breeders in and around California – Portland, Utah, Arizona, etc.