It's a strange thing to ask I know but when the good Dr. Cynthia asked me if I wanted Nadi (my dog)'s teeth after her surgery, I thought about it for a minute and then said "ok."
I don't know what I was expecting but I was thinking that like human teeth, there would be some alarmingly large roots that were attached to them.
But before we get to that just know the pictures are not gruesome and the teeth have been cleaned. First let's take a look at Nadi in her current state.
You might notice something on her chin in that picture and that my friends, is bits of mozzarella cheese that I wrap her pills in to convince her (trick her) into thinking that this is a treat. It's really gall-bladder support and liver support pills which as you would expect, are not the tastiest things in the world. This sliced mozzarella cheese makes a real mess though and she ends up with it trapped in her goatee for most of the rest of the day until I get tired of looking at it and wet wipe it off of there.
That's a blurry picture of Nadi's removed teeth. Two molars and one of the chompers from the front. You will notice that they do not have much in the way of "roots" to them but according to the doctor and her in-house surgeon, these teeth normally would have roots like you would think they would, but Nadi's teeth were so rotten that the roots were almost completely destroyed when they were extracted. They had to be extracted in pieces because they were so far gone.
I am a pretty attentive and conscientious dog owner, and I am a bit disappointed in myself for not taking care of this earlier. TO be fair to me it was never pointed out to me by a veterinarian over the years and I don't have a great deal of doggy dental skills so I was unaware that I was doing anything wrong.
Apparently this sort of thing is very common with small breeds and especially with Shih-Tzus since they were bred to be completely indoor dogs and have no work-dog function and never did. I constantly remind Nadi that she is a descendant of Chinese royalty and that is why she is so lazy and doesn't particularly care for exercise.
By the way if you happen to be in Da Nang, Dr. Cynthia is quite possibly the absolute best veterinarian that I have ever encountered in my life and we are very lucky to have her here in Da Nang. She almost certainly could be making a lot more money working elsewhere but her heart resides in Da Nang and I'm just so happy that she is there. She really seems to care about Nadi for real and isn't just putting on a show when we come there. She has 3 rescue dogs of her own and is just a true-to-her-heart animal lover that really cares about all animals.
Nadi is doing just great these days and the effects of the surgery have completely worn off. She is back to her usual self and I don't think she even knows that her teeth are gone. She is back to eating hard food and even chewing on what I call "chewy chews" but they are just rawhide sorts of things that are covered in some sort of dried pork or beef.
I spent a long time being very worried about if she was going to simply survive this surgery but in the end she is a lot better off and perhaps even more energetic than she was before the surgery happened.
If you have a small breed you may want to have their teeth looked at or maybe even start brushing their teeth while they are still young and you can get them used to the process. Nadi is too old for that procedure now so we are just going to remove the ones that get old and gross.
