Thursday 5 December 2013

Buster Brown has chipped a tooth

See the point where it went into his chin.
I'm not sure how, but he chipped it and the sliver was embedded in his lower lip. I had a cat who had managed to rip his lower lip in 1997. The vet thought that one had fallen from a tree. This could be the same thing.

 Buster Brown slept most of the afternoon, while I went out to a volunteer meeting for a couple of hours. When I came home, he was still sleeping in the chair. This is unusual as his bed of choice during the day, is mine, snuggled up to the pillow. Then he leaps up and wants out to play.

 I lifted him up in order to sit in the chair and saw this smooth white lump sticking out of his chin. A quick phone call to the vet, ten minutes to 6 p.m. just before they closed for the day, but they asked if he was in pain and I knew he was. We're much better at identifying pain in animals than in people! Mind you, we have far fewer myths about animal pain than human pain!

Anyway, we dragged him off to the vet and Dr. Sarah was a little grossed out, too, but she took out the tooth! After a deer was fatally injured by a shot with a bow, and wandered all over our property, bleeding, I was pretty grossed out. My forest walking path had drops of blood as it bled out.
This wasn't nearly so bad!
He's lost a good chunk of tooth.
 Depending upon the damage to the tooth itself, it might have to be pulled, but he's looking pretty good.
We brought him home and he inhaled several tablespoons of canned cat food, and was good to go, he thought. I told him he was grounded, with an open wound. Dweeb.
Not only that, but he can consider the vet's bill payment as his Christmas present!

I gave him a 5 ml syringe of pain meds in the evening, and he snuggles down for the night!

These teeth are huge, by the way. They are about as big inside the gums as they are outside. (Like an iceberg!) Which makes sense, as they rip and tear and must be strong and firmly embedded. The other vet showed us a tooth, the size of my thumb, from dog. It came in embedded in a truck tire! The dog had lost the entire tooth!
They love their cat walkies

On field mouse patrol
Here he was after I removed a tick from
near his eye in summer!
What a boy!
He was in a fight with something.

3 comments:

Red said...

Oh Buster Brown! You have some explaining to do. Animals feel pain. They can also tell us about . They usually cry pretty hard. I hope this turns out well.

Red said...

My blog is missing on most feeds. You are one of the few people who pick it up. so here's my question. Any idea what might be wrong?

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari Om
OMC Buster, best mum doesn't know what you were up to...

What a handsome lad. So glad this was a relatively minor injury. Don't at all like the sound of the hunting caper. YAM xx