Four-year-old Bradley Mills, from Calne, England, recently underwent reconstructive facial surgery after being attacked by the family’s Doberman. The England-based Swindon Advertiser reports that the dog pierced Mills' forehead with a tooth, and bit his nose to the bone.

The family describes a frightful scene in which the dog appeared to be headbutting Mills, but was in reality biting his face. A plastic surgeon performed a 2-hour operation to close the wound and reduce scarring.

"They had to scrub the exposed bone to make sure it didn't get infected, and then they stitched his nose up and glued it as well. They needed to do both because it was so serious," his father Jonathan Mills told the news source.

The boy is recovering well physically after the surgery, but still has emotional trauma from the incident. The dog had no history of violence and the family has remained undecided about his fate.

Emergency situations like this call for a board-certified plastic surgeron who can limit the amount of damage and scarring produced from an injury.