Petey's Birthday

Petey turned 13 on February 2. To celebrate the momentous occasion, he had his teeth cleaned. The poor dog had four teeth pulled. That is a total of 7 teeth he's down now. On the right side he has no teeth past his 'fang' tooth. It really hasn't hampered his eating however, and unless you pull his lip up, it isn't noticeable.

The vet, however, was quite concerned and told us that "at his age, he cannot afford to lose any more teeth". She went on to scold us for feeding him too much wet food. Of course that night was first time I'd seen the commercial with the dogs with dentures!!

Now Petey is on all dry food. He's not too wild about it, but when he gets hungry enough, he eats.

The vet, knowing Petey's flair for the dramatic, also told us that he could eat dry food without trouble in about 24 hours. That dogs healed quickly. Other than giving him a liquid antibiotic twice a day for 10 days, he should be just fine the next day.

It was a good thing she told us that. Petey knew that a serious thing had happened to him, and he was out to milk it for all it was worth. For several days afterwards he would raise his head pitifully when we walked in to the room, and then not be able to hold his poor head up and longer, flop back down. I really wish I had taken video of the pitifulness.

Of course, he learned about the antibiotic dropper right away. He acted like the stuff tasted terrible. He would fling his head wildly whenever we would squirt any in his mouth. The stuff would fly all over the place, especially since he didn't have any teeth on one side to hold it in.

It became a battle of wills between the humans and the dog. John and I would strategize as to the best way to go about getting the stuff actually down Petey's throat, and he would think up ways not to let that happen under any circumstances! We finally came up with John getting a very squirmy dog into a headlock, while I hid out in the other room with the dropper. Then I'd insert the dropper in the toothless side of his mouth and squirt while holding his snout closed. I'm glad we don't have video of that. John & I might be in big trouble with the animal rights people!

We always followed up with a treat though. I really wouldn't be surprised if that stuff did taste bad. He needed something to get that bad taste out of his mouth, right?