Why Dentistry Is Important

[Greys4Us]

This is Quincy.

 

He was turned over to our group recently.

 

This is what Quincy’s mouth looked like when he was turned over to us.

 

 

 

This is Quincy’s teeth. They were in his mouth until recently.

 

 

Quincy is a perfect example of what happens when an adopter does not take the time to take care of his greyhound. When we took Quincy in, we were told that his teeth were “normal for a greyhound.” We didn’t question much. All we wanted was to bring him to our group and help him after his adopter asked us if our group would take him.

 

When we took him, it only took one minute to smell the horrible breath coming from Quincy. When we looked into his mouth, we were sick. We could tell by the black tartar and the shrunken and red gum line that this dog was in trouble.

 

We immediately made an appointment with our vet and within two days, Quincy was getting his dental. We knew that it would be bad. But we were sick and shocked to learn that Quincy lost all but four teeth! Quincy is six years old and he had been in his home for three years.

 

We don’t know why his adopter was able to overlook the obvious. We know from what our vet told us that Quincy had to have been in a lot of pain for a long time. He drooled constantly which was how the mouth tried to compensate for the pain. He also took a long time to eat. He had to have felt immense pain each time he tried to eat.

 

His teeth were not “pulled”. They popped out of his mouth when the tool the vet used for cleaning off the tartar was used. Only three of the larger teeth actually had to be pulled.

 

PLEASE take the time and make the effort to keep your hound’s teeth clean. Find ways to keep the teeth free of tartar. If they don’t like having their teeth brushed, find some other way to clean the teeth. There are products on the market that will help keep tartar from building up. Save the money for a dental. Yes, dentals can be expensive. But, what is the cost to the dog? How costly is it to watch a fairly young dog lose all but a few teeth in his mouth just because someone didn’t take the time or want to spend the money to keep his teeth in good shape? How much time and effort would it have been to prevent what happened.

 

Maybe it would have happened anyway. Yes, some greyhounds have bad teeth. Some are prone to having problems. Blame it on genetics, etc. That is not the point. It is no excuse for a dog to suffer pain. Bad teeth can cause many other medical problems.

 

If Quincy could talk, we are sure that he would be pleading for every person who has adopted a greyhound to do the right thing. His mouth is healing quickly because those teeth were ready to come out. He is happy and healthy now and has a great appetite. He won’t ever be able to chew on the bones he picks up but he’ll find some enjoyment from carrying them around. He will miss out on some things a dog loves to do. But he’ll be OK. And no thanks to the person who was given Quincy in return for a promise take care of him.

 

 

 

(If you are part of a group, please feel free to copy and use all of this material on your web site or hand it out to new adopters. If it saves one dog from going through what Quincy had to endure, it will be worth it.)

[mychip1]

Poor sweet baby....

[FiveRoooooers]

Oh, I feel so bad for Quincy, the pain he was in. Good for you guys for taking such enormous care of him.

 

Dentals, ya gotta do them. When Zeke-aroni and LadyBug came here, they were nine y.o. and had not had dentals since they were 2 . I thought their 19 teeth (between them), the horrible (killer) breath, and raw gums were bad. Quincy makes their mouths look good. Poor baby.

[Guest Greytluv]

It just amazes me. Can't the owners smell that? He literally had a rotting mouth

[Guest FastDogsOwnMe]

Amen. This is so sad and so preventable. Vikki's teeth were every bit as bad as that when I got her. My 13 year old dog's mouth is perfect, and he's NEVER had a dental, and I scale the start of any tarter off weekly (monthly, really, as weekly isn't even needed). They all chew and eat bones routinely. Vikki also drooled, and she chattered her teeth.

 

That poor dog- I don't think letting that happen is any less neglectful than starving the dog nearly to death.

 

Thanks for the very good and powerful reminder.

[Guest IrskasMom]

Money is a big Holdback on that! To have Bloodwork done and the Cleaning , you could count on $ 500 around here. But that's why I have only one and that's all I can afford to keep him well.

[PatricksMom]

I know of one family who honestly didn't realize that their dogs' teeth were really bad, because their vet never said anything. Only when the dog was seen by another vet (for an unrelated reason), was the issue raised and now dental hygenie is looked after appropriately. I don't know how the group deals with that situation though

 

I'm glad Quincy is now feeling better though.

[Guest ThunderPaws]

Very sad... over the years I took in a few owner surrenders with horrible teeth... Just in the last few days alone I've seen several posts about surrenders in poor condition... guess it's only going to get worse if the economy doesn't pick up soon...

Edited August 23, 2010 by ThunderPaws

[Guest FastDogsOwnMe]

Dentals are expensive, but I think in MOST cases they can be prevented from ever being needed. I can't see how a dog could need a dental if you feed a quality diet and scale his teeth weekly, the exception being if the dog came with god awful teeth before being adopted.

 

Thunderpaws, I hear you.

[tbhounds]

Oh poor Quincy. Having seen the pictures of the extracted teeth I can believe that they just fell out-- usually the multi-rooted teeth have to be split to be extracted --in the pics it shows that they are still intact. At least now he's kissable again!

[GreyPoopon]

Poor Quincy. I'm glad your group was there to take care of him.

[Guest luvdogs]

I am a hygienist and I can see on the teeth just how far down the bone was. If you look at the roots they are white until a tinge of pink. That is probably the line the bone was down to. Some of the teeth look like they may have had less than a millimetre of bone around them. So sad. That is a huge amount of bone loss. Perio disease not only affects the teeth, but the same bacteria circulates in the blood and can contribute to heart issues and a whole pile of other problems. This is the case for humans and animals alike. Poor guy, such neglect.

[Guest greyhound1]

Poor baby! Glad he is doing better now.

[Guest kydie]

Poor pup,,,, care of ALL dogs teeth is important,, not just greys,,, my boy came from an adoption group,,,, we were told he had a dental before adoption,,,,, REALLY, ,,,, with in one week he was at the local vet's for a true teeth cleaning, ,,,, dragon breath that can be smelled clear across a room in not normal..... so in all fairness,,,, adoption groups need to step up too

Edited August 23, 2010 by kydie

[Guest ChasesMum]

wow that is just... horrendous! That poor dog.

 

I now feel lucky that Chase only had one dental, just last year. the raw bones she got helped a lot.