# Broken tooth



## janr (Sep 10, 2013)

My dog plays with rocks and has unfortunately broken one of her canines. Have any of you had this happen? It doesn't seem to bother her but the tooth is turning yellow. What are my options?


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## Nigel (Jul 10, 2012)

Could need a root canal, is the pulp exposed? Could have a crack that's harder to see as well. When Zoey broke hers the back of her lower left canine broke off from a collision with our male GSD. We did a root canal and crown, but I've heard others mention just doing the root canal. Doing nothing may lead to infection.


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## janr (Sep 10, 2013)

Yes, I think the pulp is exposed. I am calling the doggy dentist.


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## Nigel (Jul 10, 2012)

Our dogs are so much tougher than us, mine wanted to continue playing after the incident. The way it was explained to me is when the pulp is exposed it becomes an entryway for bacteria to enter the blood stream, so good your taking her in. It's not cheap, but maybe you'll have more than one dog dentist in your area, we do not. Here's one of the X-rays from Zoeys RC.


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## janr (Sep 10, 2013)

Thank you so much for sharing that. We're lucky that we have several dentists in our area. I'm told I need to go in for a consultation. I wonder if her tongue would stick out if I were to have the tooth pulled instead of a root canal. I'm sure they will let me know.


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## Nigel (Jul 10, 2012)

I would be wary of pulling it. The canine is huge and removing them is quite the surgery. Cost more for the RC, but worth it to me and I'm sure my dog. I know the lower canine makes up a large portion of the jaw structure. Talk to dentist once you've got the X-rays and see what your options are. How old is she? 

To give you a idea how long it is, it takes two X-rays to get the whole tooth. This is the other one of Zoeys.


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

I can do one better than Nigel. Jinks had somehow busted an incisor (I believe it was him trying to escape a wire crate) and after consulting with a canine orthodontist, I had it extracted when he was sterilized. Here you can see that it's busted (the one next to it is chipped, and also genetically small)









Here's the extracted tooth. Notice the nearly 1/2" of root! And that's just in an incisor!









I don't know if you should have the canine extracted or not. Consult an orthodontist and go with that. I'm sure that a canine is a much bigger concern than an incisor, but I can tell you that Jinks is NOT missing it. In fact, it's as if he doesn't even have stitches in his mouth right now. He's initiating tugging (though I'm not tugging with him with stitches in his mouth) and eating totally normally. And because he was already under for the sterilization, the extraction was very cheap- like $40.


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## Nigel (Jul 10, 2012)

Good pics Willy, I should have some pics of Zoey's surgery somewhere, she also had an upper incisor removed at the same time, we didn't even know about that one. The damage to the incisor happened sometime earlier.


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

We had this happen a few years ago. The RC at the doggy dentist cost around $1200. The broken tooth was kind of rounded off and filed down to about half-length after the surgery -- she didn't have any lingering issues and still carried her ball around like always.


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