Toothless.

I was sitting on the floor the other day playing with Otto. Suddenly, a strange, somewhat white thing falls out of his mouth onto my leg. He swiftly scooped it up with his tongue and ran under a table with it. He seemed embarrassed, and Otto doesn't get embarrassed. I pulled him out and demanded he show me what he was trying to chew up.

It was a tooth. An incisor, to be exact. When he realized I was trying to get it from him, he promptly swallowed it. I knew then that it was time for another dental.

As you can see, he already has a few missing teeth..

Yorkies are known to have really bad teeth. It's just part of their breed (and a good reason not to spend money on purebred dogs... mixed breeds are generally much healthier). Otto, unfortunately, was no exception (though he is exceptionally well-behaved for a Yorkie). I got his teeth cleaned for the first time when he was 4 years old, and he had to have probably about 10 teeth pulled. Since then, I tried every dental treat/toy I could find. Nothing seems to do a good enough job, and there is no way he will ever let me brush his teeth.

Now he is 6, and this time, only around 5 or 6 teeth had to be pulled (I always assist with my animals' vet visits since I've worked with the vet, but I cringe every time another tooth has to be pulled), but sadly (especially for my wallet), I'm going to have to get his teeth cleaned yearly now (at least).

Here's a rundown of what doggy dentals/teeth cleaning entail: first the dog is given a sedative shot. When it is pretty much asleep, it is put on a gas mask for a short time and is then intubated. Then the mouth is propped open with a little tool that fits between the top and bottom canines, and the cleaning begins. First the tartar is scraped off, then loose teeth are pulled, then the teeth are polished (very similarly to human teeth cleaning), and finally, a sealant type thing is applied to the teeth. Then the gas goes off, the intubation tube is removed when the dog wakes up a little more, and pain/antibiotic shots are given (only get pain shot if teeth have been pulled).

My poor baby waking up. He looked like this for about 5 minutes, and his head was super wobbly. Yeah, I laughed.

To make his mouth feel better after his pain meds wore off, I made him some frozen dog treats. He absolutely loves them. I found the recipe on Pinterest, but I kinda just eyeballed the ingredients. This is what I used:

Two small (single serving size) tubs of plain yogurt
1 banana, mashed
About 1/8 cup of peanut butter
About 1 T honey

You just squish it all up, scoop it out into ice cube trays, and freeze it. It's probably good to limit the treat giving to once a day since these have yogurt in them (a lot of adult dogs become lactose intolerant, but small amounts shouldn't hurt them and can actually be useful in treating diarrhea).

This is basically what they look like. I'm kinda tempted to try one myself...