Rex's Trip to the Dentist...

Today Lisa, our lovely vet nurse, brought in her ridiculously spoilt dog Rex so I could have a look at his teeth. Rex has had smelly breath for a little while and given his desire to be a 40kg "lap dog" she thought we needed to clean his teeth.

Rex's breath was a little too smelly for close quarters but his teeth were pretty good apart from tartar buildup and gingivitis on his right carnassial tooth.

As you can see the tooth is browner than the others but really not that bad.

However Rex's carnassial tooth had a nasty fracture in it which is the result of breaking down heavy bones!

 OUCH!!!

Not only was Rex showing no signs of pain be was continuing to munch on bones and eat his dry food as normal!

The fracture meant that the tooth root was exposed which effectively means that the bacteria in his mouth had a direct tunnel down the tooth canal and into his jaw.

If we had have left this an abscess would have formed in his jaw and started to kill the surrounding bone. It's that nasty!!

Unfortunately we had to removed Rex's tooth to take away the discomfort and ensure he didn't get a horrible infection.

Now what can we learn from Rex's trip to the dentist today?

1. Dogs don't like showing pain!

If Rex was in the wild and showed that he had a tooth ache he would be discarded from the pack as he would be a liability and another mouth to feed. Our domestic pets still have these innate instincts which means that he would rather starve (effectively committing suicide) than not eat.

2. We cant always tell what is going on in our pets mouths until we closely examine them.

3. Bones aren't always good - more on that later in the week.

Rex came around from his anaesthetic with an obvious message for me but we have since made up!!!