My favourite was a little Pomeranian I called YY. When I was working at a charity organisation and on duty in its ward for surrendered animals, I saw this little cream-coloured fluff ball bounce up and down in her cage trying to catch the attention of any passer-by. She was adorable. On examination I noted YY was missing a left foreleg, which made her all the more unique. She hit a compassionate nerve in me and I decided on the spot that I wanted to take her home. I wondered why on Earth any sane person would abandon such a beautiful animal, especially at the ripe age of 10. Having kept such a cute dog for 10 years, you'd figure the owner would keep her until it was time for her to go to doggy heaven.

I soon found out why she'd been given up. When I bent over to lift her out of the cage, I was assailed by a horrible stench. The smell wasn't coming from a soiled behind, but from her mouth. It smelled rather like raw sewage. A quick examination showed YY had a set of totally rotten teeth. This didn't faze me and so I took her upstairs to the surgery for dental treatment. A thorough examination needed to be performed beforehand during which I noted a murmur coming from her heart, so I had to be extra careful with the anaesthetic.

I had to remove almost all of her teeth, leaving only three molars on the left side. It was so bad that you could see pus leaking from the holes left after extraction of the teeth. YY woke up fine. The only side effect of her traumatic treatment was that her tongue forever dangled from the right side of her mouth because there were no longer any teeth to hold it inside her mouth. This just made her all the more cute and unique.

As the years went by, I noticed YY would cough whenever she exercised. Such exercise intolerance is an early symptom of congestive heart failure. Having acquired the skill by then to use an ultrasound, I performed a scan of YY's heart to work out what was causing the heart murmur. What I found was startling; her left heart valve was all but eroded to nothing by a bacterial growth. I suspect the bacteria originated from her previous severe dental disease. I started on a course of antibiotics, but the damage had been done. There was no way to fix the valve. I started YY on heart medication to make the heart pump more efficiently and to reduce her coughing. The coughing was caused by fluid accumulating in her lungs because the heart wasn't able to pump it out fast enough.

Each year I feared was going to be her last. In her later years her coughing got worse, but she was still the same bouncy, cheerful little dog I first sighted in the cage at the animal shelter. I had to increase her dosage and add further drugs to keep her coughing under control, but otherwise she was fine and happy.

One morning 10 years after I adopted her, I had just had a ritualistic cup of espresso and started to head out the front door to work. I noticed YY trying her best to get into the rubbish bin in search of last night's discarded leftovers. I told her off and headed off to work. I did not know it would be the last time I would see her alive.

A few hours later I received a frantic phone call from home; YY had had a heart attack and died. She was brought down to the clinic but it was too late; she had started to go stiff. I cried and mourned her death after seeing my last client that day. YY had died at the age of 19. She had had a good life and had given me 10 years of unconditional love and joy. I still wonder to this day how long YY would have lived if her previous owners had taken care of her teeth. She may still be alive today.

So every time I am presented with an animal to examine, I make that extra effort to stress to the owners the need for daily attention to good dental hygiene. Yes, dogs and cats should have their teeth brushed twice a day, just like people. We humans are just another animal.