Retained Baby Teeth

[Morwenna]

My almost 6 month old Lab’s last two adult teeth are finally coming in (upper canines) but the baby teeth haven’t fallen out yet and aren’t even noticeably wobbly. I’m giving her until the end of this week before I phone the vet as the adult teeth still have a way to come and she gets lots of thing to gnaw on but does anyone have any experience of this? All our family dogs growing up and every other dog I’ve known had no issues with retaining baby teeth so this is new to me.

 

[meleeka]

I’d give it longer. A friend had the same problem. The vet wanted to take them out and the (expensive) surgery was booked. Friend had to cancel and sure enough, they came out soon after, which the vet had said definitely wouldn’t happen.

 

[Wobblywibble]

If you intend to get her spayed any retained teeth can be removed at the same time. Either way, hold fire for the time being

 

[Morwenna]

Thanks both. That’s what I thought but I made the mistake of googling…

 

[Redders]

We don’t remove at time of spay anymore. More recent knowledge and assessment of risk of damaging the adult teeth/leaving roots behind is too high so it’s now recommended to surgically extract them with x rays taken. literature suggests that if they aren’t gone by 6m, they aren’t likely to come out on their own. But dogs don’t read the textbooks so maybe they will come out a few months down the line. However, the longer they are there, the more they will damage the foundation and gums around the adult teeth due to plaque trapping causing periodontal disease.

surgical extraction involves raising gum flaps, removing bone and deep scaling of the adult root - this all creates bacteria laden aerosol, which is why we won’t do at time of another clean surgery (except minor lump removal perhaps) because there is an increased risk of post op infection. It also extends the anaesthetic and recovery time

 

[Morwenna]

They are getting a bit loose now and the adult teeth still aren’t fully in but I need to phone my vet next week for wormer so I can ask about them then.