Frodo Gets a Dental

A trip to the dentist is never something to look forward to and for Frodo, heading to a vet for a dental was doubly so. Poor guy had a rough time of it yesterday.

Tartar wise, his teeth weren't too bad, especially considering that this was his first ever dental. In the waiting area when they did a quick check of his teeth, they didn't find anything loose or looking like it had to be removed, so I was pretty happy about that.

However, I got a call from the vet tech while he was under and one of his molars had pulp exposure from the years of wear (all those antlers he likes to chew through, likely) and that can be both painful and dangerous since it increases likelihood of infections/abcesses. In fact, it explains why he has been eating a lot slower for the past several months. That cold, refrigerated food probably made his nerve endings scream.

Of course the molars are the toughest to remove so the poor guy will likely be feeling it for awhile. He's on antibiotics and pain killers and I'll be forcing him to take it easy for a bit. 

Studied indifference and a twisted harness

On the drive home he was not happy. We stopped at the Post Office and he tried to bark at the people in the car next to us but was too hoarse to be effective. He had also worked his way part of the way out of his harness, which is a little too big for him.

He did get a Kong when we got home and that cheered him up a bit and he forgot to groan for about 30 minutes. 

One thing I wanted to note was that in spite of the fact that Frodo had pretty clean teeth at 7 years old, they still tried to push the crappy, very unhealthy, Science Diet dental food, and dental chews at me. Seriously? You don't think the raw diet and added enzymes are doing a pretty good job when a 7 yr old comes in for their first dental and has fairly clean teeth? I know that people need to listen to their vets, but they also need to question everything and educate themselves. Vets are not trained in nutrition and if they do get any training it is typically in free sponsored classes put on by Hill's Science Diet or Purina - not exactly an unbiased curriculum. Also, vets make a lot of money selling those foods and they are going to recommend them for a ton of different issues. The fact is that all the Science Diet foods are rated in the D and F range on dog food rating scales, and keeping a dog on the food long term will lead to other health issues in the future.  So listen to your vet, but understand that when it comes to nutrition or behavioral training issues, your vet is not the best source of info. There are vets out there who have studied nutrition independently, however you have to look pretty hard to find them.  Okay, I'll step off my soapbox now.