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Sunday, February 26, 2012

Teeth (and leg)

I thought I would do a bit of an update on Ebon, especially looking at his teeth. I posted just a little over a month ago on teeth in a dog whose primary diet is kibble. In that post, I included the following pictures:
Right canines
Right carnasials
Left canines
Left carnassials
On the seventeenth of this month, Ebon broke a tooth.

Upper right carnassial, which turned out to be cracked right down the middle, opening up the pulp cavity.

On the twentieth of this month Ebon went in and had his teeth cleaned and his broken tooth pulled. On that day he also came home with an injured leg that I've been struggling to keep him from licking raw ever since. I've posted two updates on that. What I haven't yet posted is what the rest of his teeth currently look like.

Right carnassial and rapidly healing socket
Right canine
Left canine
Left carnassials

His leg, looking better
His teeth really do look lovely. All of the tartar is now gone and the socket really is healing nicely. I've been softening his food to make sure nothing would get lodged in the socket, but today I stopped that since the cavity is less than half of the size it was. The socket is a little irritated now, but that shouldn't last long. I still won't be giving him any chews until the socket is completely healed and toughened up.

As for his leg, when I went in for the follow-up check I was given a cream to apply twice daily. Though at first I was wrapping it both to stop the weeping and to keep him from licking, I'm now leaving the leg free most of the time. Since he's been off of the pain killers, he is not licking nearly as aggressively and, in fact, hasn't bothered with the leg much. When I do catch him licking, he'll stop if I ask him too, which is a bit of a relief. He actually licked his opposite foreleg so much one day that it ended up swelling rather alarmingly. A couple of hours in a compression bandage fixed that, though. The wounds are looking pretty good. Pigment is starting to come back to his skin, and some fur stubble is also beginning to appear. The only issue is that the cream I'm now putting on his leg is yellow and when it dries on his wounds, it makes them look a little...weird. Sort of sickly. However, it is only the cream.

As soon as the scabs begin to flake off I'll be comfortable with starting to take him back out on adventures. There are a couple of spots right on the margin of his pads, which are a bit tender. Hopefully those will also toughen up again quickly.

I also promise that updates will go back to being more regular. I've been spending a lot of time hovering over the dog to make sure he's being doing okay and not harming himself. Mentally I've been a bit spastic thanks to my frustration with the vet and the dog, but things are calming down. 

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