Good news!!

I had a lecture on dentistry this morning and our lecturer was a specialist referral vet in dentistry. He told us all explicitly that we MUST NOT leave deciduous teeth in alongside permanent teeth for any length of time. We MUST NOT wait until spay/neuter to remove them as they can shift the permanent teeth in the meantime and after about 6 months old the alveolar bone underneath the permanent teeth will not re-mould so easily and you could then have a dog with malocclusion that could have been avoided had the deciduous teeth been removed sooner.

Evidently a new school of thought in light of recent findings, but he was very firm about it

Really glad your pups' extra teeth all fell out though

Hi VA Is he saying retained deciduous teeth should be removed at 6 months ?
I think you have to look at each dog individually and as a whole.
If the retained deciduous teeth are monitored and the vet is of the opinion they are doing no harm he may prefer to leave them until a dog is spayed rather that risk giving two general anaesthetics, leaving them may be the lesser of two evils.
I certainly wouldn't rush to give my dog a general anaesthetic to remove a couple of teeth which in all probability may fall out on their own anyway.

As a dental specialist his opinion is that, particularly retained deciduous canines, can alter the position of the permanent canines, and close the diastema between the maxillary incisors and canines, which the mandibular canine has to sit into for a normal bite (if that makes sense).
He was saying that if the deciduous teeth are left in alongside the permanent after 6 months of age then there is less chance of the damage done being reversed and you can end up with a maloclusion on the dog for no good reason, which obviously can be traumatic and cause oral problems for the dogs' lifetime.

That was his opinion on the matter, and I guess, as he spends most of his time seeing and treating the more advanced stages of disease caused by these simple things left early on in life, he would know.

I can see what you are saying about the GA and I think a lot of vets currently think that way. I'm not sure what I would do - I think probably if the permanent tooth is fuly erupted and the deciduous shows no signs of shifting, I would probably remove it.

I've been suitably scared into brushing all my dogs' teeth regularly today too.

My cavalier puppy, Alfie, is 5 months old. At the moment he is playing and chewing his toys quite roughly and I assume that he is teething. He is on dried food and is normally very enthusiastic at mealtimes and is in fact a bit greedy. Yesterday, when I put his food down for him, he took one piece and seemed to have trouble chewing it, the same with the second piece. He then walked away from it and didnt seem interested. With a little coaxing, he ate a few more pieces and then polished off the lot. I wondered if his gums may be sore if he is teething. This morning I soaked his food and mashed it up and he ate it all. Has anyone else had this problem. He is fine otherwise and I dont want to take him to the vet just for him to tell me that Alfie is teething. Any advice would be appreciated.

My younger dog was raw fed all through teething in fact I think it was gnawing bones that helped him lose his teeth.

Have you look in side his mouth?

I have tried but not successfully, but to be honest, I dont really know what I am looking for. A very quick look yesterday didnt reveal any missing teeth.

The longest Rosie went with a retained baby tooth was 4 weeks. The milk tooth would be solidly in place one day and missing the next

Just to remind people this thread is almost 2 years old....