Broken Tooth

[ChewieTAG]

Hello,

I am feeling very devastated that two of my small girl's premolar teeth (both lower jaw, same place of premolar from both sides) are broken from nylabone chewing... She has always been a strong chewer and loves chewing so I have a few nylabone for her to chew on. She has been chewing for a good year and plus already. Her teeth are wonderfully healthy because of that. Although I do see how her constant chewing on nylabone does file down her teeth a little bit. I always supervise when I gave her the toy and will throw it away when the knob are quite file down..

However, just last night, she loves to lay on my lap to chew her nylabone and so she did. She suddenly was too interested to find something in between my legs and I noticed a piece of white stuff next to my knee. I picked it up thinking could be a piece of the nylabone but it was part of her tooth!!!!! Check the photo. It is her right premolar. I was shocked.

Then I proceed to check her overall teeth and found that her right premolar has broken too!!! But it looks old as it has healed. However I can still see the 'leftover' premolar in the gum in her left side.

She doesn't seem to be in pain at all even right after both premolar were broken! No issue in playing toy or chewing something else like socks, soft toys and no problem in eating (not like she chew anyway as she basically swallowed her kibbles whole).

I've booked a vet's appt for this afternoon.

I am utterly gutted for her lost of both the premolars. She has such wonderful and healthy teeth so the vets said. Sigh..

For now, I will not be giving her any nylabone , maybe once a week just to clean up her teeth but .. looking at how intense and strong chewer she is... I will be reluctant to give her bones or anything else too. She has bouts of swallowing foreign objects and so on too.

I am feeling really upset by this and guilty for giving her the nylabone ..

Regards

Lisa

Edited August 22, 2014 by ChewieTAG

[persephone]

for her chewing - why not give her chicken wings /carcasses? those bones are much softer than nylabone ..and much healthier :)

Hope the vet visit goes well.

[korbin13]

One of mine snapped a premolar on a soup bone leaving the pulp of the tooth exposed. By a stroke of luck she was due to go in for xrays so we got it removed at the same time.

Since then I have never given my dogs anything hard to chew. Chicken and turkey necks, lamb flaps and roo ribs are what is given here now.

And yes, she does have nice healthy looking teeth! Good luck at the vets.

[cavNrott]

Those hard synthetic bones are dangerous. There are plenty of safe dental treats available now. The soft dental chews from the supermarket are useless for keeping teeth clean though. Why not give your dog raw bones to chew. Not the large weight bearing bones bug softer bones such as chicken wings or lamb ribs.

See what the vet has to say when you go there and please update us. I hope your little dog won't need dental surgery.

[Jumabaar]

Teeth dont 'heal' like the rest of the body. There is a hole in the middle of the tooth that the nerve sits when it is 'alive'. If you can see this hole then the tooth should ALWAYS be removed.

This hole goes directly down into the bone that the tooth is attached to and so is a direct line for bacteria into the bone. This means that it will always result in infection in the bone which is painful and eventually lead to the bone being destroyed and the infection may even burst out of the skin!!

Quality of life is important too so if chewing is her 'thing' then is is really important to find options for her to continue- don't feel bad about her breaking the teeth on the nylabone it is one of the 'safer' alternatives so there was no way to predict it. I have had some success with the softer kong toys as chewing options, although they do need to be replaced reasonably often.