The other day, I had my wisdom teeth removed. I live with my aunt and uncle and their beautiful Shiba Inu, Shina. Shina came for the drive to pick me up from the oral surgeon. I had been under general anaesthetic (my teeth were all impacted) and was not really with it at the time, but my aunt and uncle told me that Shina was very concerned and wouldn’t stop staring at me.
I came home and slept for a few hours until I was sort of a normal person again, and when I went to see Shina, she smelled my breath and took off, staring at me from across the room.
Two days later she still won’t let me pet her, if I get within a foot or so of her, she can’t get away from me quickly enough!
Has this happened to anyone before? I need my doggie hugs!
… Also I’m in pain, how long does this pain take to go away? Hehe. Any tips for wisdom tooth aftercare? I’ve been looking online but I’m just getting confused. I’m slightly drugged. My lip is STILL numb from the surgery.
Apologies for any grammatical errors, I’m not very alive right now!
She can probably smell the anesthetic on your breath and is freaked out by that. Do your breathing exercises, take showers, and whatever else you need to get the smell off of you. Hope she comes round to you.
I had a tooth that had cracked and developed an abcess. It was not painful but started to swell. It was a day or two before I got around to calling the dentist, but during this time, my dog seemed very concerned about it. She would just stare at me and sometimes climb up in my lap and sniff at it. After a day or two of antibiotics, the swelling started to go down and the dog calmed down.
There must be something about the bacteria that live in your mouth that they can smell.
I woke up today, opened my door, and there she was outside my door. Wagging her tail. It was cute. I guess she had been worried about me, since I’d been asleep for 19 hours in a row.
Then I bent down to pet her, and she took off again!
She is really protective of her rawhide bones around me now! She seems to think I want them.
Ehh, I don’t know what I’m talking about really. I am just glad to have something to concentrate on. I love this board. Typing distracts me from the pain.
Has she been spayed and/or had other surgery herself? Perhaps she associates your new (and temporary) scent with unhappy memories of vet visits. Animals have good scent memories - my brother’s ferret Fang hated the vet and would bite anyone who’d been wearing laytex gloves and still smelled like them…he never bit for any other reason.
i’d credit the extraordinary canine sense of smell to your current stand-off status, rinni. undoubtedly you smelled of anesthetic when you came back from the dentist’s, and this most likely confused and upset the poor pooch. even if that hasn’t already worn off by now, though, you still have an open, possibly leaking trace amounts of blood, wound in your mouth. the dog probably smells that, and is somewhat understandably squikked. your head and breath probably smell like you just ate something… live.
ditto for the doggie fascination with the abcessed tooth, MC$E. it could probably smell the growing infection, and like any loving, supportive being was expressing concern for your health.
