Donut Goes to the Dentist

Or rather, the dentist comes to Donut.  After I'd had Donut for a couple of months, I felt she was ready to be introduced to having her teeth floated.  I was pretty sure she had not had them evaluated or worked on before, and I wanted to make sure that any problems were identified soon, so they could either be resolved or mitigated.

I opted not to use sedation for this first visit.  For one thing, because this was her first appointment, I didn't necessarily expect that the dentist would be able to do everything he would do for an older, more experienced horse.  I figured I could always schedule a follow up visit if needed.  What I really wanted was to see how she acted to determine if sedation would be needed in the future and to give her a positive experience.  My dentist also specializes in not using sedation.  He has a very quiet manner and I have never seen him yell at or hit a horse, no matter what shenanigans they were engaged in.  He never seemed intimidated by Nimo's size and while I did lightly sedate Nimo for a few years, it became unnecessary over time.

When the big day arrived, I gave the dentist Donut's background, and asked him how he wanted to proceed.  He set up his tools in Donut's stall and basically just started working with her.  He didn't use a speculum on this visit because of how young Donut was and because it was her first appointment.  But he did do a fair bit of rasping.  He identified some sharp edges, which he said was normal for yearlings that haven't had previous dental work done.  So he rasped those down.

He didn't identify any other issues, except for letting me know that Donut did have wolf teeth and that he recommended extracting them before she was two years old.  He said that at that age, the teeth are typically much easier to extract and that he used to do it without sedation decades ago when sedation options for horses were not as safe as they are now.  That said, he did recommend sedation for the extraction and he said he could use the speculum then too.  He thought that sedation for the first time a speculum is used can be helpful for a lot of horses, so they can go through the process and understand that it won't hurt them.  So we set up an appointment for the extraction for this coming March, just before Donut turns two years old.

The most amazing thing about the whole process was that Donut was completely unfazed.  She acted like it was the 10th time her teeth had been floated, instead of the first.  In fact, when the dentist was done, she tried to follow him out of the stall!:)

Donut acts like a pro when she gets her teeth rasped!

I've had the same equine dentist for 20 years.  I started using him because he was the barn dentist at the first barn I boarded at when I moved to Virginia.  Over the years, he has been the dentist for four different horses (including Donut), and he is the one equine professional that I have trusted implicitly to take good care of my horses' teeth.

Because of that trust, I have never spent much time learning about equine teeth.  But at some point I know this dentist is going to retire.  I'm sure he'll give me plenty of notice and do his best to refer me to a qualified and capable colleague, but I do want to add learning about teeth to my list of things to do, so I have a foundation from which to evaluate the new dentist's work.  

Right now, I can summarize what I know about teeth in just a few sentences.  I know that a horse's teeth grow constantly, although the rate of growth can decrease with age.  I know that young horses lose "baby teeth" and grow adult teeth just like young humans and dogs do.  I know that not all the teeth come in at one time or age the same way, and that is why looking at a horse's teeth can help determine its age.  

I'd like to more, like what the different teeth are called, when they grow in, how they age.  I'd like to know more about how growth or wearing can go wrong and how it can be fixed.  I'd also like to know if there are ways to prevent it.  And I'm sure there is a lot more that I don't know that I don't know.  So I might like to learn some of that stuff too.

But how to go about learning it?  One of the things that I hope this blog will become is a resource on pretty much any horse-related topic that I can think of.  Equine dentistry is definitely a topic I'd like to include information about.  So I've set up a separate page for dentistry resources (look for a tab at the top of this page and click it).  I don't have too many yet.  I'm not sure if that is because there aren't a lot of resources available for horse owners or if I just don't know the right place to look.

Here is what I have found so far:

The Horsemanship Dentistry School by Dr. Geoffrey Tucker.  This school offers a path to becoming an actual dentist, but the beginning module seems to be targeted more for the average horse owner and is priced accordingly at $47.  I've taken the nutritional course offered by the same vet, and I found it to be very informative and well worth the purchase price.  (My plan is to post a formal review of the nutrition course soon.)  So this class is definitely on my short-term list of online classes to take.

Hannes, Chris. Caring for the Horse's Mouth.  I haven't read this book yet, but it is on my list to buy this year.  It is the only book I could find that didn't look like a textbook.  I'm not sure I'm ready for textbooks just yet!

The Center for Neuromuscular Horse Dentistry.  I've seen this type of dentistry, also called Natural Balance Dentistry, mentioned by a number of horse professionals, including Mark Rashid.  The website does have some publications, a DVD, and other information on it, and I'm definitely interested in learned more about this technique.

If you have any resources that you've found to be beneficial, please let me know in the comments, either on this post or over on the resources page.  I'd love to add them to my list:)