This week: dental hygiene
I have a stiff neck today from the dental day I had in the clinic yesterday. It often surprises people that a general-practice vet is also a dentist. It also surprises most pet owners that good dental care not only improves the quality of life of a dog or cat by preventing dental problems, but can potentially prolong the animal's life by minimising systemic illnesses caused by poor dental health.
I've owned more than 40 animals in my life and more than 90 per cent have lived 16 years or more. The secret of their longevity is not the fact I'm a vet, as I had pets long before I became a vet, but constant attention to selecting good-quality pet food, keeping the animal's weight on the lighter side of normal and maintaining good dental hygiene. Most of my animals are adopted or were given to me at a ripe old age, and that means that some of these animals arrive in my care with already severe dental disease, such as tartar and gingivitis.
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.