Re: Baby Teeth

In Reply to: Baby Teeth
Category:   Medical
Posted by:  Terri Kuklinski
Posted on:  November 20, 2002 at 13:42:44

: My question is about our 10-month old Katie. Her adult canine teeth have come in - both top and bottom. Her bottom baby teeth fell out shortly after getting the new ones. Her top baby teeth however never did. They are still there, right behind the new ones. Have you heard of this before? This is my first JRT and my first puppy experience, so I am not sure what is "normal" for puppies. The teeth don't interfere with her eating or chewing, I was just curious if we should take her to the vet ASAP or if this can wait until her 1 year vet visit?

: P.S. I wanted to quickly thank the reader who posted information about using Peanut Butter to distract the puppy while nail clipping - it worked like a charm! It distracted her long enough to get started. We got all nails clipped without being bitten and without any "escape attempts".

Response:

Dear Terri,

I suggest you should go ahead and get her into the vet soon. It's not an emergency situation but the longer her mouth is over-crowded, the greater the potential for problems down the road.

If the baby teeth are solidly in place, your vet may need to put Katie under anesthesia to extract them; if she's not yet been spayed, this would be a good time to take care of that too. :-)

Best,
Leslie