Wolf Teeth

When Donut had her first dentist appointment last fall, the dentist recommended that she have her wolf teeth removed before she turned two.  He said the procedure was generally easier on the horse and resulted in fewer complications when the horse was younger.  Apparently, the roots for the teeth are typically shallow at that age, so they are more easily extracted.

I have to admit that the idea of extracting teeth, even vestigial ones, really bothered me.  I did some Google searching to see if there were any other options.  But aside from finding a few anecdotal stories of horses that did still have wolf teeth, but weren't experiencing any problems, there wasn't much aside from the standard advice for removing them.

I even toyed with the idea of committing to riding Donut bitless, just to avoid the issue of the wolf teeth causing a problem with the bit, until I read that they can sometimes even cause problems with nose bands.  And I was reluctant to take away the option of riding with a bit, just in case Donut's preference becomes a bit over a hackamore.  Riding without a bit would have also caused some issues with my Science of Motion work.  SOM practitioners are very pro-double bridle and very anti-bitless bridles.  I don't have the same feelings, but if I want to preserve my ability to continue working with SOM instructors, I have to be prepared to use at least one bit.

All in all, it has been a bit frustrating for these past few months, because I felt like I was constantly running up against one constraint or another with respect to the wolf teeth.  In the end, I finally decided to go through with the appointment for Donut, and she had her wolf teeth extracted last Thursday.

The dentist, who normally prefers to work without sedating horses (as long as the horses are amenable), did strongly encourage me to have Donut sedated for the procedure.  So I set up an appointment with my vet to be there to sedate Donut.  It used to be that I could get the sedative from the vet and do it myself, but vets now insist on having to be present for the sedation.  In Donut's case, it made a lot of sense to have the vet there because Donut had never been sedated before, and it would be good to have someone with medical training there in case there were complications.  However, once the correct dosage has been established, it makes no sense to me that a vet would need to administer it.  Horse owners administer all kinds of drugs without supervision, so the only reason for the insistence on being present for sedation for dental procedures is to discourage horse owners from using equine dentists over veterinarians for dental work.  

I'm not sure about other states and countries, but Virginia has definitely had controversy over the years about allowing people who are not veterinarians to be equine dentists.  All I have to say about it is that I have learned the hard way that just because someone is a veterinarian does not mean they know anything about performing proper dental care and just because someone isn't a veterinarian doesn't mean that they can't perform proper dental care.  In the case of the dentist I use, he has demonstrated repeatedly over the past 20 years on my horses and on friends' horses that the care he provides is good quality.  Once he retires, I will likely explore using a dentist with a different type of training, but I will never use a general veterinarian for my horse's dental work.  Just like I would never expect my general doctor to work on my teeth.

Anyway, I fretted a bit the day of the appointment about how the logistics would work.  I had an appointment with the dentist and the veterinarian, but an emergency or traffic accident could easily send my plans to the trash bin if one or the other couldn't get there on time.  As it happened, both the dentist and the vet arrived promptly, and the vet conservatively sedated Donut with a quarter of the dose she would normally use for an average horse.  I had just had a wellness check up for Donut a couple of weeks ago, and based on her girth size and appearance, the vet had estimated her weight to be between 800 and 900 pounds, which I thought sounded reasonable.  

Well, either that estimate was really off or Donut is very sensitive to sedation.  Because that quarter dose almost brought her to her knees.  She needed the support of a wall and a person for the entire procedure because she had so much trouble standing.  And while it sucked to be her, it was really good to find that information out so I'll know for the future that if she requires sedation, she needs a much lighter dose than normal.  The same thing actually happened when I first had Nimo sedated for his castration.  He was hit pretty hard by the drugs and took quite a while to recover.  It is invaluable information to have.

The dentist first floated Donut's teeth and then extracted the wolf teeth.  She had two - one on each side of her upper jaw.  He said horses can have only one wolf tooth in either the upper or lower jaw or they can have as many as four (two on the upper jaw and two on the lower jaw), although I read that in very rare cases, horses can have double wolf teeth in one or more places.  Here is a picture of Donut's wolf tooth on the right side of her jaw:

It is hard to see and much smaller than I expected.  It really looked like a barely emerged, tiny tooth.  And then I felt bad all over again about having them extracted.  How could something so small cause a problem?  But what's done is done at this point.

The extraction seemed to go well, and the dentist said it would be unlikely that there would be any complications.  He did suggest syringing saline solution over the extraction sites once a day for a few days, if possible.  But otherwise, I shouldn't need to worry about anything.

I was a bit concerned about Donut because of the sedation, however.  It took her a full two hours to come out of the fog.

I stayed with her until I was certain she was able to chew normally and the brightness had come back to her eyes.  I walked her around for a few minutes too, so that I could check her ability to walk.  Once she seemed mostly back to normal, I turned her out and kept an eye on her for a bit.  The next day, the barn staff said she slept a lot more than usual.  I was glad to hear that because I hoped the extra sleep would help her with her recovery.

Now that several days have passed, she seems to be just fine.  There aren't any signs of pain or sensitivity or swelling in her mouth.  I'll continue to keep an eye on her, of course, but it is likely that if nothing comes up during the next week or so that she should heal completely.

I'm curious about other people's experiences with horses and wolf teeth.  Have you ever owned a horse that had wolf teeth that caused problems?  Or didn't cause problems?  Have you owned a horse that had to have its wolf teeth extracted?  Were there any complications?