Freckle & Ceilidh’s Blog

I think that Doggy Dental Month is February or March … we’re always a bit late with celebrations. Freckle had her four teeth removed at the end of April and Ceilidh had two of her remaining teeth removed May 28th. Our vet very kindly saved one of Ceilidh’s teeth—the one that looked like a sea lion tusk—in a little glass tube. I said to Mary Doug, “aaaawwww … one day many years from now, we can make this into jewelry and we’ll always have Ceilidh with us.” I started to get teary … then I opened up the glass tube. Hoooeeey! It was FOUL! Don’t think I want to carry it around my neck … only if we make a piece of jewelry that includes the sealed glass case!

Anyway, looking at Ceilidh’s tusk got me wondering about what teeth are made of … and I found this nice little description of teeth at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Veterinary School.

Built for crunching and chewing, teeth mostly consist of hard, inorganic minerals like calcium. But they also contain nerves, blood vessels and specialized cells that manufacture the tooth’s different parts, says Bill Gengler, a veterinary dentist and oral surgeon with the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine.

The tooth’s outermost layer—the part we brush—is enamel. [Er… that should read: “the part we SHOULD brush.” Seriously, we’ve tried over the years! Pugs have vice-grip mouths—except when food is about to enter—and they’re not about to let you mess around in there with a toothbrush (child or doggy-variety), gauze wrapped around your finger or any other weird invention that you or your vet can come up with!]

Deposited by cells called ameloblasts, enamel is 95 percent inorganic, says Gengler, making it the hardest material in the body. In contrast, only about 50 percent of our bone is mineral.

Enamel is thin, though. In dogs and cats, for example, it’s just a fraction of a millimeter in thickness—so most of a tooth’s substance comes from the dentin underneath. Made by cells called odontoblasts, dentin is about 70 percent inorganic and tubular in structure, like a network of “little conduits with liquid inside,” Gengler says.

Inside the tooth, below the dentin, is the pulp chamber. The pulp includes blood vessels that nourish the tooth by delivering oxygen and nutrients, and fast- and slow-conducting nerve fibers that warn us of problems.

What Dr. Gengler failed to mention was that dog tusks such as Ceilidh’s smell really bad when they begin to decay and fall out and really don’t make very nice jewelry. Happy belated Doggy Dental Month!

We’ve been BUSY in our house. For the past couple of weeks, Freckle has had tummy problems which we just assumed were related to switching her to a home diet. Before this she’d been eating a mixture of oatmeal, turkey (or salmon or chicken), veggies and kibble. But with the commercial pet food issue, we decided to switch her to home diet sooner rather than later.

However, a few days ago, Ceilidh also had diarrhea—and one bout of vomiting. Off we went to the vet and came home with assorted remedies for both of them and antibiotics for Ceilidh. When we gave Ceilidh her first (massive!) pill, we saw that her remaining canine tooth was sticking out at a strange angle and was really, really LONG (check out the photo above!)! In fact it looked like she had a sea lion tusk in her mouth. And it was wiggly … like a child’s front tooth about ready to fall out. Back to the vet, and dental surgery the following day.

As you recall, Ceilidh has only one lung, so surgery/anaesthetic is always a concern. And she IS almost 13! But she came through it all without any problems and must feel so much better to have the tusk gone from her mouth. The only thing is that now, eating her food is a pretty messy affair as the tusk was the last of the front teeth. Now, she puts her face over her dish and it’s as if you put an electric mixer in a shallow bowl and turned it on high. The contents of the bowl end up all over the kitchen! It must be extremely frustrating for Ceilidh because she has to run all over the place scooping up the bits that fly off. It’s a dog’s life!

Back to Freckle … she’s now on antibiotics as well and is eating a prescription hypoallergenic food … and is feeling much better. We’re not sure yet what protein we’re going to find for her since she may be not tolerating the chicken/turkey option. Her prescription food includes duck and pheasant but our pheasant supply here in Vancouver is a little lean. We’ll find something.

This morning as Freckle and I walked past the IGA/liquor store up the street from us, we heard someone running behind us saying “Excuse me… excuse me.” We turned around to see a very tall man with kinky blondish hair pulled back into a tiny pony tail. He was panting by the time he reached us. Freckle sat down and we both looked at him expectantly.

Then he began to shout. “Can I use your cell phone to call 911??!!!” Freckle and I were both quite interested now. Kinky continued… “Those hoodlums over there…” He pointed to a group of 5 or 6 of the guys who live on the street in our neighbourhood. They were the regulars and we know them all because of being out and about with the dogs a lot. “They’re drinking alcohol in open view!” Kinky shouted. He paused as if he expected a response and then repeated himself. “They’re drinking alcohol in open view!”

Freckle and I had both turned to look in the direction of the group on the corner. It was true; the guys were all drinking cans of beer. Not a common sight actually. Usually they’re hustling around collecting cans and I rarely see them drinking “in open view.” I inhaled and was about to say, “I wonder if not having a living room of their own to drink in has anything to do with it?” But then I looked down at Freckle and she was gazing in the direction of the street guys, nodding her head. All she said was “Hmmmmm….”

Before I could say anything, Kinky, who was gesticulating wildly now, said “And I have a vintage car right there that they’re just obsessed with!” Freckle and I both turned toward the clump of fellows to see the vintage car. I was about to say, “Do you mean the one parked behind the Lexis?” [The photo above looks rather similar—just imagine it with primer instead of a paint job!]

I was thinking “You’ve got to be kidding!” In my mind, the car that I saw was the kind of thing that used to end up in the rocky corners of the hayfield until one of the neighbouring farm’s teenaged boy decided to tinker with it. However, I suppose that would make it vintage if you consider how many years ago that was. All of this was swirling through my mind as Kinky continued to rant about the impending vandalism to his car. I opened my mouth to say that I didn’t think that the guys were much of a threat. In fact they were completely oblivious to the vintage car AND the Lexis. As I considered how to say “Don’t be an idiot!” diplomatically, I glanced down at Freckle again. She was gently shaking her head and saying “Hmmmmm… “ soothingly while looking at Kinky with her soulful brown eyes. She seemed to know instinctively how to interact with this guy without becoming enraged by the wackiness of the world … or taking a trip down memory lane to weigh the true vintage-ness of his car.

By now Kinky seemed to have given up trying to get my cell phone and had lost some of his bluster. He pointed at the liquor store and said “Well, this is the place that sells ‘em the stuff, so I’ll go use a phone there!” And off he stomped. Freckle and I carried on and I pondered the usefulness of judgment … and the value of letting go of judgment. Another lesson from Freckle: When someone’s vintage car is in danger, it’s probably better to just nod and say “Hmmmmm…” because stating the obvious would probably be lost on them anyway.

“Well, I’m outside and the sun is shining, the wind is blowing …yeah, pretty much always the wind is blowing … and it just builds up in me and I kinda burst … ya know? I kinda just can’t keep it in. I just have to pounce on the swirling little pink blossom petals. They’re just swirling and swirling … ya never know where they’ll go next—they’re all over the sidewalk. I just kinda lose it! I have to jump on them… sometimes I just mash my face into the sidewalk. I can’t help it! I’ve never really thought about it as a weakness … ya know. It’s just something I do … like digging in the sand and chewing on a Nylabone dinosaur. Who knows where it comes from? If it feels good, do it!”

These are Freckle’s words … after we realized just what was going on and confronted her. It was after the first windstorm in cherry blossom season. Both Mary Doug and I had one arm that had been extended by 14 inches! We’d be walking along like any other day and bam! Freckle would be pouncing and grinding her little lopsided nose into the sidewalk … for no apparent reason. Until we realized that she was chasing and attacking cherry blossom petals—little pink flakes that swirled in the wind and raced along in front of us in a windstorm. She was gleeful! Almost ecstatic you could say. It was amazing once we recognized the signs. We’d had no experience with this particular behaviour. And Ceilidh would stand by and look in Freckle’s direction (Ceilidh is pretty much blind) with an expression that said ‘What ARE you doing?

Is it good for her? Probably not … at least it has the potential to be bad for her. We have speculated about whether this might be the cause of her broken jaw but then dismissed the idea. After the wind dies down and our extended arms have shrunken back to their normal length, we usually laugh about Freckle’s habit. After all, how often do you just break loose and do something spontaneously simply because it feels good? How often do you express your “inner joy” and engage in play when the opportunity arises? Exactly! I think we should learn from our cherry blossom-chaser and begin watching for moments of opportunity when they swirl past us too.

We’ve been a bit puzzled by Ceilidh’s behaviour lately. She’s been spending a lot of time standing over a sleeping Freckle … just staring at her face. When we ask her what she’s doing, she quickly moves on, muttering something indecipherable under her breath. The other morning, Mary Doug caught Ceilidh standing in front of the CD cabinet, which has glass doors and on a good day you can see your reflection. Mary Doug said she couldn’t be sure, but it looked like Ceilidh was making faces at herself! I told her not to be silly … but wondered if this might be a sign of age (Ceilidh, not Mary Doug). Then I saw Ceilidh yesterday in front of the cabinet… doing something weird with her lips. I just shrugged my shoulders and watched her wander down the hallway as if making faces at herself in the cabinet mirror was an everyday occurrence.

But then last night, Ceilidh said, “OK, I think I’m ready!” Mary Doug and I looked at each other and then back at Ceilidh. Ceilidh said, “Ready? Watch this!” Then she stuck her tongue out as you can see in the photo and said “It’s not that hard to look cute! The whole world thinks that Freckle is ‘just adorable’ with her tongue that hangs out. Well, it’s not that hard ya know!”

What else do you do? We applauded and gave her a few pointers… like she needs to work on her asymmetry to get the Freckle impersonation perfect. You gotta love ‘em eh?