Nelson is an energetic and loving Greyhound X that belongs to one of our technicians. He is a rambunctious boy and loves nothing more than chewing his ball! Last August, Crystal returned from a night at the movies to find blood all over her dining room. After checking out all three dogs, she found that Nelson had broken off his lower left canine tooth. Unsure how this happened, and unhappy about it, Crystal had Nelson accompany her to work the next day to receive an emergency dental. This situation was considered emergent as the pulp of his canine tooth was exposed and he was actually bleeding out of his tooth. This was probably extremely painful for him. After a full dental (which he does get yearly, so it was not the END of the world) and full mouth radiographs, Nelson had to have both his canine and the incisor beside it removed.
Nelson and Crystal went home from this adventure and all was well. Only a few days later, Crystal, who thought she had done a great job hiding every ball they own from Nelson, walked into the living room to find Nelson, happy as could be, chewing on the hardest ball they own. Needless to say, Nelson had ripped out all of his sutures from his extraction. So, the next morning Nelson once again got to tag along to work with Crystal and received another emergency anesthetic to repack and re-suture his canine tooth.
As before, they headed home, Nelson donned his basket muzzle that would become his new permanent head wear until his mouth had healed and all was once again well. About three weeks after the initial incident, Nelson’s mouth had healed nicely and everything was back to normal, the madness was behind them. While out in the yard playing, Nelson came tramping up to Crystal with his usual big grin and something caught her eye. Nelson had once again broken off a canine tooth! This time it was his upper left canine. This is on the same side as the original fracture. After a few tears of frustration, Crystal called Dr. Stewart and asked if she could come in on her Saturday off to perform yet another emergency dental. Happy as could be, Nelson once again tagged along to work with Crystal (she was beginning to think that maybe this was all a scheme on his part). He does look pretty darn happy under that anesthetic!
A third emergency dental was performed and another canine was extracted. Dr. Stewart recommended we send Nelson’s dental radiographs to a specialist to ensure there was nothing foundationally wrong with his teeth, as two similar fractures for no obvious reason seemed odd. The specialists could not find anything that would cause sporadic fracturing of teeth, and so life went on. Months have passed since all this commotion and Mr. Nelson is doing fantastic! There have been no more dental issues and he is slowly learning how to carry his ball without teeth! Some people may think he looks goofy as his tongue hangs out, but Crystal thinks he is as adorable as ever!
Nelson will still receive his yearly dentals, but hopefully they stay yearly. This is a good reminder that these things can happen to all of us and it’s a good thing we love them so darn much! If you would like to stay up to date on all of Nelson’s antics, you can follow him on Instagram @nelson_longlegs. You can also follow Nelson’s clinic @martensvillevethospital 😉