Today I took Beckett to the veterinary dentist. I bet you might not have even know they exist, they do, rare, but here at the Minnesota veterinary school they have a dental office. Previous to my own adoption, he broke one of his lower canines. Of course it looks like well before that he was a cage chewer. The technician said it occurs a lot with working dogs and Beckett probably developed and honed this particular bad habit back in his track days. Our dentist was amazed about how well behaved Beckett was and did some extra examination that most of the time he could never do.
The broken tooth looks dead, which is good, because it means its not causing him pain. But whether it is dead or not, it is probably infected, but only X-rays will tell how bad. Another issue is that he wore the other K-9 down so thin, that even if he isn't chewing on the crate, it wouldn't take much for that one to snap off. The options for the broken tooth include extracting the broken tooth or having a root canal done. For the other K-9, we can take some preventative measures, including having it filed down, it may or may not also be infected. If it is they will file it down remove some of the pulp and seal it back up. Its a good thing I love my dog, and it is even better that I have saved away some money for any medical interventions he might need.
P.S. On the table is model of the canine mouth including all the teeth.
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