Teething Tales

Airlie's teeth seem to be bothering her more than teething ever bothered the other two dogs. I remember Leo lick, lick, licking at his upper canines, wiggling them with his tongue, licking the blood away, til they would just fall out. I remember marveling at how big puppy canines were, and wondering about the future adult-sized ones!

I don't remember Kansas losing teeth at all, though I'm sure I at least noticed the gaps where missing baby teeth had been. She and Jax spent all day every day in Mom & Dad's backyard together while I was at work, so I wasn't around to see a lot of this.

I've been reading up on puppy teething ages and schedules. I've learned a lot. Airlie seems to be right on track. losing her upper and lower incisors at about the 20-week mark. One day there were just 3 empty spaces, two days later she'd lost most of the lower incisors and the new ones were already half grown in. By the end of the week, she had a full new set of incisors on both the top and bottom.

Earlier this past week, she lost her first canine tooth. She'd been playing really roughly with Kansas over the weekend, crashing into the corner of the brick wall on the house at one point, the side of her face making contact. DH and I both witnessed it and winced, but she seemed unfazed. Tuesday I noticed traces of blood on anything she'd been chewing, and had also seen her pawing at her jaw that day, so I decided to take a look, fearing the worst. I wasn't really sure if she was done losing/growing teeth or not, since I'd kind of forgotten to pay attention. I knew about the incisors, of course, those are easy to see. I knew about the upper canines, thanks to raising Leo, and was keeping an eye on those, but I had no idea if she'd lost the lower canines yet or not, and because I never paid attention to any teeth I couldn't see, I really couldn't tell you anything about premolars, molars, missing deciduous premolars, adult molars...

Airlie, for a puppy still in the mouthing phase, sure struggles a lot if a human WANTS to put their hands in her mouth. Funny, the rest of the time you can hardly keep her mouth off of your hands.. or arms, etc... I managed to hold her still and pry her mouth open long enough to note the lower left canine was loose when WHACK! She gave one final smack at her own face with a paw, and sent that tooth flying across the kitchen. I grabbed it before she could eat it (like she wanted to, and Leo did this, too), and inspected the hollow base, deciding it was, indeed, a baby tooth and that there were no roots present. I set it aside for DH to see, just in case and because I wanted a second opinion. God forbid she'd actually broken a tooth (or several) when she crashed into the wall.

I felt bad about the way her bottom lip quickly rolled into the gap left by the tooth, nothing to hold it back. I was sure chewing on that or accidentally biting it was going to be uncomfortable. There seemed to be a good-sized lump where the baby canine had been, so I was hoping for an adult one to make an appearance soon. It hasn't arrived yet, but the erupting lump is bigger, and the lip in that area is red from being on the inside of Airlie's mouth, rather than the outside. It doesn't seem to be bothering her, but it looks uncomfortable. She's not chewing any more than usual, though she does seem to prefer soft things to chew, rather than hard ones. She's still eating sticks and mulch, though I don't see how that is going to be very helpful. When she does chew on her hard toys, she has this funny habit of wrapping them in her blanket first. It's cute and clever, but I don't really want her in the habit of chewing her blanket. Also, she mostly chews with the incisors, instead of chewing with the parts of her mouth where teeth need to come out or grow in.

Today, while performing the routine inspection of her mouth and teeth (which has yet to get any easier) I noticed something I wasn't sure whether was odd or not. It prompted me to get out my canine medical books, which prompted me to write this post. Airlie's upper molars and adult premolars (puppies don't have molars, just premolars) are growing in behind her puppy premolars. She has two rows of teeth on both sides of her upper jaw. Both sides are surrounded by swollen, pink flesh, little islands the length and width of my thumbs on either sides of her face, erupting bloody, white peaks. I assumed this was normal, since it was symmetrical, and I figured once the baby teeth fell out the adult teeth would shift over on their own, but I emailed a breeder friend of mine for confirmation. She concurred and said the canines are really the ones to watch, because although they do fall out, it takes a very long time, and while it also takes a very long time for the new ones to grow in, she has had an experience in the past with a female puppy's lower canines coming in too far back in the jaw, because she wasn't paying attention and didn't pull the puppy ones soon enough and the adult teeth fused to the bone before they could move forward into their rightful places.

Baby puppy teeth can be pulled at any time, since the roots reabsorb back into the gums. I'm not expecting to have to do this, though. Actually, I do think I pulled Leo's second loose canine, way back when, because his constant licking at it was annoying me and it was just dangling right there. I just reached in and grabbed it. I'm sure there's a blog post about it somewhere on his page...

So, we just wait- even though it looks like Airlie has teeth growing right out of the roof of her mouth.

It also looks very painful, though she's not complaining and it hasn't slowed her down any. I am going to do one thing I've never done but have often suggested. I soaked an old dish cloth, tied it in a knot and put it in the freezer. I never tried it before because the other two didn't seem to need it and also because someone mentioned that giving your dog some cloth things to chew on prompts them to think chewing on any cloth things is ok. I'm not quite sure about this, since they are able to distinguish between plush toys and clothing, eventually... but since she's already shown a penchant for grabbing dish towels and chewing holes in them, pulling the towels out of the cats' crates and chewing those, etc... do I really want to give her a towel to chew? I suppose as long as I am dilligent with showing her what she can/can't have, it shouldn't be a problem.

At this point, the knotted towel is done freezing and she seems to be enjoying it.