Per this Website. I can’t see how the dog equivalent of a crown is going to be to be better than a real tooth.
I would assume they’d be made sharp. Crowns usually aren’t.
By “good idea”, do you mean good for the health of the dog, or could it be more dangerous than a normal tooth? Dog’s teeth get all kinds of abuse since some can be flaming idiots. One of my mom’s dogs has a penchant for fetching stones as big as her head and small felled trees when playing Fetch. She’s broken a few teeth doing that, but still does it anyway.
I have no problem with using titanium in dental work - I’ve got a crown mounted on a titanium composite post. The crown itself is the usual porcelain.
But, that site implies that they take healthy teeth out and replace them with implants. That’s what kinda wierds me about it.
As for the stomach surgery - gastric torsion or bloat is not uncommon in large breeds such as Great Danes, Dobermans and German Shepherds. The mix of large dogs, wolfing down food and vigorous exercise can literally twist them up internally, at which it’s a full-on medical emergency and it can be fatal. Some people do advocate prophylactic surgery to better “anchor” the stomach so it can’t twist.
Saw a piece on ABC news last night that mentioned the dogs used by Navy SEAL commandos sometimes have had broken teeth repaired with titanium prosthetics. I can’t imagine why this would be done preemptively, though.
As a former US Army dental technician we had the opportunity to do a crown for a military police dogs’ canine. We did it in Type III gold and it looked freakin’ awesome! BUT: It is in no way an “enhancement” over natural teeth and would never be done prior to sustaining some type of damage. I have done a lot of dog training over the years with the inevitable accidental bite and I can tell you that natural dog teeth are plenty effective at their intended purpose.
Do police/military dogs actually end up doing much non-training biting? One would think that most times the presence of the dog is enough to quell the situation to where no one needs to be chased and bitten. I could be totally wrong tho. Anyone know?
Dogs have an incredible sense of smell which is valuable for sniffing out drugs, bombs and people. The big nasty sharp pointy teeth are just a bonus. While they may be trained to attack, their primary purpose is detection. That is why the SEALs had one there: to detect explosives or OBL if he was in hiding.
As a person who’s had a lot of dental work, I can say it is amazing what they can do to fix teeth, but they are NEVER as good as the original
Metal teeth might improve them at that, too, though. Let me tell you, if I’m facing a dog with a mouth full of titanium, I’m going to be inclined to cooperate.