Belle Cardigan: The Gleaming Fang

posted on Monday

Oh, dogs and the things they do to their teeth…

Well, first there are the things WE do to their teeth. Or don’t do.

We feed them dog food, which creates a different mouth balance checmically, which creates tartar. And then we do–or don’t–do things to offset that situation.

My guys get knuckle bones once a week, which go a very long way to keeping things sorted out; they get Nylabones around the house..

They do, when necessary, get various tooth gels applied, with or without toothbrush.

They get their teeth scaled by yours truly as is necessary.

All those things generally create enough of a balance so tartar is under decent control. I’ve only had one dog who’s needed an actual cleaning, and that would be because of the other factors she introduces and yes I’m talking about you, Miss Belle!

Because Belle Cardigan reminds me now and then: if a dog adores her chewing so VERY much, she will break teeth on whatever she puts in there to chew. Sometimes this is done rather slyly, so the human never knows.

Especially if it doesn’t particularly bother the Belle dog, which somehow, it never does.

So every now and then, I get an unpleasant surprise.

“It was shattered,” the vet informed me of the latest tooth to go–the giant carnassial, of which she only had one left. Of course, it was infected, too, because it had shattered in place and then just sat there that way.

It costs an astonishing amount of money to remove a shattered carnassial, that’s all I have to say about it.

But Belle is recovering nicely–antibiotics, a $pecial tooth gel, and her dog food specially pureed into gruel–and during the process she also had her teethies cleaned, and boy do they gleam.

Until that swelling goes down, of course, I’m in worry mode, but Belle doesn’t seem to be. She’s ready to be off restrictions and cause trouble with her brothers.

And she thinks the salmon-flavored $pecial tooth gel is just FINE.

Miss Belle on her sun-warmed railroad tie in the yard