Earlier this week, I took the dog Shamrock (we call her Shammy Sham Shamalino Shamarooski for short) into the vet and found out one of her back teeth was falling apart. Literally. The vet broke a piece off and showed it to me.
I felt so bad about it; I like to avoid my dog’s mouth whenever possible, so I never looked at it. I knew my her teeth were pretty bad with tartar, but I didn’t think it was that bad. She did drool quite a bit after drinking water, but we just figured it was because she was a goofy dog. She’s pretty stoic about pain too, so how do you know?
Anyway, I took her in yesterday and they knocked her out, took out the bad tooth, and cleaned up the others. We have her on meds for the next few days to be sure (which leads us to wonder what if she gets hooked on the drugs, man?). Shamrock’s OK, but like I said, I feel really bad about this.
So lesson learned. Kids, your Intergalactic Gladiator tip for today is make sure your dogs teeth are taken care of or else they’re going to have to be pulled out.
Brushing a dog’s teeth isn’t that bad (for you or them, once you both get used to it). Meat flavored toothpaste, yum! It’s much cheaper than paying for a doggie dental, and avoids the risk of anesthesia and infection, too.
Poor little Shamrock! This happened to my old dog Joe. He had a tooth become so infected it had to be removed. That’s when we started feeding raw meat bones. Never had to have his teeth cleaned again. In fact, the vet wanted to know who we were taking him to to have his teeth cleaned because he knew he wasn’t doing it. Our dog George has never had to have his teeth cleaned, he has always had a raw meat and bones diet.
My sister’s dog Lucy recently had to have 14 teeth pulled out. Thinking back about it, I can never remember Lucy ever chewing on rawhide or Nylabones or anything like that. That may be a word of warning there.
I don’t think these things help all that much, at least in my experience. Real raw bones can, but they can’t be too hard, otherwise the dog can end up with broken teeth, which obviously defeats the purpose (rule of thumb, never give bones that were weight-bearing on the animal that they came from - those are harder than teeth). The folks I know who do raw feeding use things like chicken necks and backs, which tend to have a lot of cartilage in them so they are soft enough not to cause damage and can massage the teeth and gums. We just brush our dog’s teeth instead - different method, same result.
I recently got a new, used dog- a blond dachshund. I’m cleaning her teeth every day to get them ready to be cleaned by the vet soon. Her gums were inflamed and now they are looking better, but I’m wondering about her back teeth. They feel rough. Will find out soon enough.