Dental Float

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

When a horse has its teeth filed, they call it "floating" the teeth. Their teeth usually need to be floated yearly, or more often if necessary. The vet had said Takoda has 3 baby teeth he should have lost already but looked like they posed him no problem. She also said his teeth were done recently and did not need to be done. Always listening to my gut, I wanted a second opinion. I just "felt" there was something going on in his mouth and I wanted to be sure. MJ had an equine dental specialist out today to do Beauty's teeth, so I had him do Tonka's and asked him to check Takoda's. He said Takoda did have some sharp points in the back but they weren't too bad, but his real problem is that his canines were way too long and sharp. He showed me how they poked into Takoda's tongue every time his tongue slid over them, and said the poor guy had to be super careful not to get his tongue caught on them - all 4 of them! He pulled the baby teeth, as they were actually making his adult teeth come in very crooked behind, and he cut the canines about in half, and then filed them down. And the best part is, Takoda was SUPER GOOD! He did not fuss, even when he had 3 teeth pulled with no tranquilizer or sedative! Another neat thing is there was one point when he kept lifting his head too high for the dentist to cut the canine (honestly, I think he was just plain done - he had been good and still for SO long, and this was the last tooth to be done). MJ was holding his head, the dentist used a gum shank to control him, but what got his attention was my voice - I spoke softly to him, and he looked at me, held still and began breathing again. From then on he was an angel again, and he even behaved nicely when we turned him out. I half expected him to take off and tear around, but he didn't do either. He just looked around, wandered to a pile of hay, and happily began munching - this time without the worry that his tongue would get sliced by those canines! Attached are some photos - the teeth are the baby teeth that were extracted.