Rural Mixed Practice

For six weeks of January/February I spent time doing rural mixed veterinary practice. The jack-of-all-trades veterinary practice – the one that will see your dog, your cow, your bunny, your horse and everything in between.

It has been a slice. So much so that I have decided to work in rural mixed practice come June. I am excitedly joining Chinook Country Veterinary Clinic in Olds, Alberta – 45 minutes North of Calgary off Highway 2. There I will be working with dogs, cats, horses, and on occasion cattle, chickens and goats! It’s a good fit, considering most of my year has been focused on companion animals – the small ones, the ones that say “neigh” and the teeny tiny ones that scurry around. The clinic has a cozy country feel – there is even a fireplace in the waiting area.

That’s right – Parker and I will be abandoning the city life we’ve grown up in, to a small town of just under 10,000 people. For us, it’s a happy medium – close enough that the city is not such a far drive, but far enough away to have it’s own amenities. The college in town keeps many city amenities around – from a sushi restaurant to the recreation centre, many businesses thrive from the college students supporting these businesses.

An Abrupt End to Veterinary School

While I was mid-way through my small animal general veterinary practice rotation in Calgary – our school informed us that we would no longer be participating in rotations for the remainder of our degree – given concerns over the current pandemic. While we await communications about what we will be doing instead, I have gratefully reflected on the fact that all I had left was another equine rotation – at a practice I had already been to, after spending more than ten weeks prior focusing on equine medicine.

Suffice to say, ending six years of post-secondary so abruptly is hard to wrestle with. We likely will not have a convocation ceremony, receiving our long-awaited degrees in the mail. When I arrived home on my sudden last day in clinics – Parker presented me with a beautiful new stethoscope he had got me for my graduation – thoughtful, and yet confusing. I was not mentally prepared for it to end.

I feel as prepared as I could be to start my career (I really don’t believe I lost too much from missing the final 6 weeks) and I will be doing my best to figure out what to do with all the time that has been given to me. We cannot start working any earlier than June as fully-licensed veterinarians, so in the mean time, I will likely be doing some art, preparing to move, and spending time with family.

During my first two weeks of my final semester, I headed up to Edmonton to spend some time learning about small animal dentistry at a referral dentistry clinic. Little did I know, Edmonton would hit temperatures of near -40C for nearly a week straight. Parker and I also switched cars for that trip. One morning, while my car was warming up and I was scraping the windows, it decided to autolock, leaving my car running and me locked out. Thankfully, a tow company sent someone to rescue me, and an hour and a half later, I still had some gas left in the tank to make it to a gas station.

Back to the dentistry – oral disease is extremely common in our furry companions. There are certainly arguments made for small animal dentistry being a waste of money – after all, wolves don’t get dental care! Well, wolves in zoos do get dental care – and they need it. In the wild, if a wolf has a broken or infected tooth, they will push on – after all, if they show weakness, their pack will leave them – so they bear through the pain until it eventually (hopefully) gets infected and painful enough that it comes out. I don’t know about you, but I would certainly prefer to receive dental care than to let my teeth rot out in such a manner. We want what is best for our pets – and because of it, they live long, healthy lives – but their teeth weren’t made for such longevity without a bit of extra care.

Anyways, cleaning teeth and removing infected or broken teeth are not the only procedures that veterinarians do. Certain dogs with poor genetics sometimes get malocclusions – that is they have crooked teeth. The worst case is often when one of their big bottom canine teeth grow in what we call “base narrow” and instead of interlocking nicely with the upper canine tooth, they grow in towards the mouth and eventually make contact with the roof of the mouth. The repetitive motion of the tooth hitting the “palate” can cause a “palatal defect” or hole in the top of the mouth. It is quite comparable to having a nail jab you in the roof of your mouth whenever your mouth is closed. Ouch!! To fix this, veterinarians will suggest one of two things typically – one being to extract or remove the culprit tooth, the other is to perform a “vital pulpotomy”. A vital pulpotomy involves cutting off the tip of the tooth and filling it with certain materials that will bind to save the tooth. If the dog is older, veterianrians may recommend a root canal instead of a vital pulpotomy.

Another procedure veterinarians do is called “gingivoplasty”. Certain dog breeds, such as boxers, often get “gingival hyperplasia” which means the gum tissue grows in an excessive way. The extra gum tissue speeds up the process of dental disease, because the bacteria have more places to hide and cause problems. Gingivoplasty involves removing this extra gum tissue to help the mouth stay healthy.

One other interesting disease seen in small animals, especially cats, is tooth resorptive lesions. We don’t quite know why these occur, but essentially the body starts to attack it’s own teeth, sometimes causing so much damage that the nerves in the tooth get exposed! It can be extremely painful. What’s worse, is while sometimes we can see these “holes” on an exam of the mouth, other times only the roots are affected, and can only be seen when dental x-rays are taken during a dental cleaning under anesthesia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hardest part about knowing whether or not your pet’s mouth is healthy, is that animals such as cats and dogs don’t tell us! In nature, everything is about survival. Nobody is going to cater to you if something isn’t quite right. If you are hurting, you act like nothing is wrong. You can’t just stop eating because it hurts! So if you are unsure about your pet’s oral health, talk to your veterinarian about doing a complete oral health assessment and treatment under anesthesia. You’d be amazed at how much perkier your furry friend will seem when their mouth feels good!

All images (with the exception of Dana) were sourced from toothvet.ca – an excellent resource for small animal dentistry information.