Throughout lockdown we have continued to provide essential dental care for patients in need. One such patient was big softie Nanuk, a handsome 10.5 year old Golden Retriever. His story (plus his heart of gold) put him top of our list to be our first 'Patient of the Month'!
Nanuk had always been blessed with very good dental health, so when at the end of January he suddenly developed very bad breath and a swelling on the left side of his muzzle his mum and dad knew something wasn't right. Although he was good at letting mum and dad look at home, Nanuk had a history of being very nervous at the practice and would not let the vet examine his mouth. A photo taken at home showed a soft tissue lesion along the mucogingival junction of the 208, which alongside the muzzle swelling seemed typical of a root abscess. This warranted further investigation and thus a referral to our dental branch!
I first met Nanuk and his owners in our car park as he nervously greeted me with a low wagging tail. The muzzle swelling had subsided thanks to a course of antibiotics and pain relief, but his owners reported the smell was still pretty bad and he'd been seen to paw at his mouth a few times. Considering his age, they were particularly worried about the soft tissue lesion above the tooth and were aware that a tumor was a possibility, so we discussed a thorough plan of action. This included a full mouth examination under anaesthetic, dental radiographs and a potential biopsy of the mass above the tooth depending on our findings.
Nanuk lived nearly an hour away from our dental branch, but his owners were fully prepared with books and a thermos full of hot beverages. They were happy for us to premed him in the car park so he could stay with them until he was drowsy and they dutifully waited for him to wake up afterwards so they could take him straight home. Such dedication surely made the whole trip less stressful for him! Premed working nicely, Nanuk walked into the practice happily, where we placed an IV catheter and put him under anaesthesia.
It didn't take us long to figure out where the smell was coming from. It turned out Nanuk was partial to giving the occasional piece of wood a chew and in doing so had wedged a stick between his two maxillary carnassial teeth. Although easy enough to remove, the stick had caused significant ulceration of the palate. Probing examination and dental radiographs showed that where the stick had been pressed against the teeth, matching abscesses had developed between the roots of 108 and 208. These went all the way through the bone to the buccal side. The soft tissue lesion above 208 was actually a draining tract! Sadly this amount of damage meant neither of these teeth was salvagable and we thus had to extract them.
Nanuk woke up well from his surgery and proved to have lost any trace of nervousness he'd shown at the start of his visit, enjoying the company of the nurse and the warmth of the Bair Hugger during his recovery. He left the surgery shortly after with a happily wagging tail.
You'd think that would have been the end of the story, but there was one more surprise! Although the rest of Nanuk's teeth were healthy both on probing and radiographical examination, a thorough oral exam revealed a small mass underneath his tongue. To be sure and to be safe we biopsied this while he was under anaesthetic. After a week of nervous waiting we got the results, which confirmed the mass was nothing more than a benign papilloma and had been fully removed!
Nanuk's owners report he is doing well at home, slowly transitioning back to his usual diet (although no dental chews just yet!!) and becoming more like his happy self as his palate heals! We've certainly fallen in love with this gentle giant and were pleased to be able to get him back to his gorgeous self!
Disclaimer - Permission was given by Nanuk's owners to share details of his case history and photo's on this blog.
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