anybody have experience with dogs breaking the upper 4th premolar (biggest tooth)? I'm debating between getting it fixed or removed, can anybody share experiences?

so far, my positives and negatives-

removal: cheaper, $150 vs $750+. I can get it removed tomorrow, but the nearest qualified dental vet can see her in two weeks (I get married and go on my honeymoon two days after that).

fix: she's only two years old, and I'm worried about future problems down the road. most info I've seen so far strongly discourages removing this tooth because of its importance in chewing.

She's not a real big chewer, but she is on a raw diet and gets chicken bones regularly.

comments/suggestions?

A patrol dog at my hospital broke his canine and got titanium canine installed. I dont know about upper 4th molar though.... :rolleyes:

I had a dog(elkhound/husky x) completely break it off so it had to be removed and there were no canine dentists at that time. She didn't have any problems with chewing even big chunks of meat and it didn't seem to affect her at all as she died at 17.5 yrs with all the rest of her teeth intact.

My husband's national schutzhund competition GSD chipped an upper 4th premolar earlier this year. The way we found out is the dog suddenly stopped biting down on his tug toys or the bite sleeve. There were no other signs of pain. There was a small chip on the outer surface of the tooth, but it exposed the root of the tooth. The options were:

1) Pull the tooth, and probably retire the dog from schutzhund competition.

2) Root canal and titanium crown the tooth

We went with option 2. The person who did the work is a board certified veterinary dentist who has a LOT of experience repairing teeth on police dogs. He came highly recommended by friends who train police dogs and SchH dogs. This experience is important IMO. We had earlier gone to another board certified veterinary dentist, but that guy had no idea what kind of forces dogs exert on these teeth during bitework, and I'm not confident he would have done a repair that would hold up.

$2400 later, the tooth was fixed. A few weeks later, this dog scored 98 points in protection in the 2003 AWDF National Championship. So far, so good.

BTW, the veterinary dentist says that cow hooves and (believe it or not) pigs ears are the main things that cause this particular injury.

Laura

My son's 4 year old Corgi had a slab fracture of a molar a couple months ago..

We opted for repair (i.e. removal of the smaller broken piece). We can always take the tooth out later if she has any problems--she only had to be lightly sedated, slab removed and on antibiotics for a week afterwards. She is not a working dog, only a family companion and is not an aggressive chewer but is on a raw diet. She has no problem with the chicken bones or pork necks since the prodedure.

If she was a dog that chewed a lot or did bitework, I may have made a different decision on what to do with the tooth.

update: found another AVD dentist, twice as far away but she's going to have a look tomorrow.

I'm very glad that I check my dogs' teeth regularly, as the only outward indication of a problem was that she chewed her chicken quarter on only one side of her mouth (which I probably wouldn't have given a second thought to if I hadn't happened to examine her teeth later that night).

My GSD broke two teeth a few months ago. I suspect it was from chewing/breaking inhalf a Nylabone. I decided to have vital pulpotomies - repair/fill done.
Time is important if you choose that route, they use to say it had to be done within 24hrs of the break but now it can sit a little bit longer. My dog had them done about 5 days after they broke.
Here's a website I discovered when it happened that I found useful in deciding.
http://www.acarc.com/dentistry/brokentth.html

unfortunately, the break was too severe to repair so she had to remove it.

on the bright side, this route is $1500 cheaper.