Sunday, February 5, 2012

Canine Dentistry...

All dentists get to work on canines. But only super special dentists get to work on K9's.

There are a ton a military working dogs in the combat theater. They have a variety of jobs. Some are bomb dogs, some are drug dogs, some are attack dogs. It's pretty cool to see the MWD in action. They respond to hand signal commands as well as verbal commands; so they too can be super stealth when they need to be. Either way, even awesome speciality trained dogs are susceptible to gum disease just like people. So a part of their annual treatment is getting them dental care. Since we are the only dental guys around, the veterinarian brings them to us.

He sedates them, and I do whatever treatment needs to be done. In this case, my tech and I just did cleanings for two dogs. In a couple weeks, we're going to do a major extraction case where we take about 5-6 teeth. At some point we might have to do some root canals as well.

Anyway, you can see, it was pretty cool. Dog teeth are pretty nasty, not to mention that our room smelled like wet dog for the rest of the morning. That being said, I'm glad we got to do it. The base public affairs office came and did a super cheesy write up about it too. If you read it, please note that even though I'm technically quoted, none of those are my words...

5 comments:

Emily Frandsen said...

glad it all went smoothly and wasn't too ruff ;)

Jill T said...

Nice opening line. :) Chalk that up to another awesome overseas experience!

Tara said...

Do you mind cleaning Radley's teeth when you get home???

mom/shauna said...

Zach said, that's really gross. I hopeI never do that.
Lucas said, that's so disgusting. I
Mom said, way to go.

Stephen said...

they should train the dogs to open up and say ahhhh...