[Ziltoid]

So i've seen the specialist and she is recommending surgery, sooner rather than later. She also seems to be suggesting complete removal as the most effective method. Cutting the tooth down is guess work because she won't know exactly where it would end up or size of the tooth. Braces might work but it'd be multi-stage and cost $3000-4000 not including the reattaching every time he knocked them off... and still may not work.

She said in her experience there is almost no chance it will fix itself and guessed the odds would be less than 5%.

I knew I would be dissapointed because there was only one answer I wanted to hear :'(

He is really reluctant to let anyone look in his mouth and she said that is because he is in pain and doesn't want us to hurt him. If he really is in pain then maybe I should get surgery as soon as possible.

I've told her that I want to think it over so she's going to email me details on my options.


What a crappy morning... I knew I wasn't going to like what she had to say. I thought waiting a while would be a good idea but I don't want him living in pain just because I don't want his teeth removed.


I don't know what to do.

 

[Liesje]

I just looked at the pics and honestly it looks almost identical to Pan's teeth during teething. He had baby teeth that wouldn't come out, his canines overlapped instead of fit together "scissor bite", he had an overbite..... but then a few months later his bite was perfect. I'm not saying the specialist is wrong but....I often wonder if I'd seen a vet or specialist at that age what they would have told me!

This was Pan's bite at 7 months. All the puppy teeth but one were out when I took this pic, but you can still see how the adult canines are overlapping and there's still an overbite (his bottom teeth were rubbing the soft tissue on the top of his mouth). Also in the second picture you can see his last retained puppy canine. I had that pulled for free when he got his hip and elbow prelim x-rays.

I couldn't find any pics from earlier while he was still teething but it was ugly!! Teeth overlapping, jutting out every which way. I was scared but most people on this forum said just let him go through the process before doing anything drastic. As I said, by the time he was a year old all of his teeth lined up and he had a scissor bite. I've even shown him twice and he got SG ratings (highest possible rating for his age) both times with no negative comments about his teeth (meaning they are correct, if they weren't it would have come up). He has dental notations from an SV and USCA judge.

 

[Ziltoid]

Hope you don't mind but I actually showed the specialist those exact photos as an example of one that came good by itself. She had a good look at them but says that the angle Pan's lower canines were coming through was kind of aimed at the gap where my pups aren't.

I'm no expert but I think they look very similar.

It's really hard to know what to do. I am really against putting him through surgery... but would hate myself for leaving him in pain if it doesn't come good.

She suggested that while i wait i teach him to hold something in his mouth so that he's not in pain, and any growth can happen without the canines being jammed. He doesn't like holding things in his mouth outside of games though so i don't think i can do anything there.

 

[abakerrr]

Essentially what needs to happen is that baby tooth needs to come out so that the top adult canine can have the room to shift back and the lower canine can push forward.

Again, I won't say your vet is wrong but I question anyone who says grinding down and capping a five month old puppy's lower canine is the best option at this point (especially when all the baby teeth haven't even fallen out yet). If that wasn't raising red flags for you too, I don't know that you would be on a web forum asking for advice/ input/ experience.

Ultimately you will do what your most comfortable with and if you trust the opinion of a licensed vet over us random people on the Internet who tell you to hold out and reevaluate in a month or two, then that's fine. No one is going to judge you for doing what YOU feel is best for your pup. But I guess what I'm getting at is there is more than enough reason to wait it out since we've given you more than 5% of real-world instances where this type of malocclusion has self corrected with time.

 

[selzer]

I am sorry you are having to make this decision. For fear that someone might claim I am anti-vet I am not going to suggest anything more. It is your dog and you have to decide whether your puppy is actually in pain (more pain than teething often causes) and what is best for him as you will have to live with the outcome of your decision.

Please keep us updated. I hope for the best for your little guy.

 

[Ziltoid]

I agree that the baby tooth does need to go but the other side without baby tooth is off as well. I'll add photos of that side soon.

I did tell her that I wanted to hold off for a while to see what happens. She has offered a free catch up in a week or two if I want her opinion on whether there has been any improvement. I think that's pretty good of her.

I would love to wait until everything stops growing before a decision is made... but if it doesn't improve quickly it will punch holes through the roof of his mouth and possibly ruin his upper canines as well.

And yes, it would seem to be better than 5% judging by the threads and comments I have seen... But I don't know if those cases are all actually the same situation/severity or just look the same to my untrained eye.

Yes, I am looking for input from anyone that has any experience with this... whether that is because I don't completely trust the vets and specialists advice, or just because I am so against surgery at this age, I honestly don't know.

 

[Ziltoid]

I am sorry you are having to make this decision. For fear that someone might claim I am anti-vet I am not going to suggest anything more. It is your dog and you have to decide whether your puppy is actually in pain (more pain than teething often causes) and what is best for him as you will have to live with the outcome of your decision.

Please keep us updated. I hope for the best for your little guy.

Please don't hold back on giving your thoughts because you're worried how people will look at it, and I hope I never gave the impression I felt you were just anti-vet because I certainly never intended it that way.

You are exactly the type of person I really appreciate feedback from. Ultimately whatever action I take (or don't) is my decision and no blame will ever be placed on anyone because I chose to follow their advice.

I am trying trying to make a balanced decision so the more I hear from any point of view, the better.

 

[selzer]

Na, not you, it is nothing that you wrote.

I really have just the one situation where the ER vet said the dog had an overbite, and my regular vet was not concerned and said let's wait and see. His mouth never gave him any problems. That does not mean the same will be true for your puppy.

A puppy buyer of mine took her pup to the vet and they found a heart murmur. First time that every happened to me. I had that pup to the vet 2 or 3 times for shots, and they never found a murmur. Her vet told her to return the puppy, considering all the trouble she had with her last dog. I said ok, or I would extend her money back period so that she could see if the pup would grow out of it. She took the dog to a heart specialist and they did an EKG on it. He said all the parts were there and clean and he would probably grow out of it. Three weeks later he was given a clean bill of health and they told the owner that she can do whatever she liked with him. She loves the dog, and I have gone to his obedience graduation, and then trained with him at my trainers. She is glad she did not jump on what her vet told her to do.

But every situation is so totally different. I do not want to encourage you to wait if it might cause more of a problem, however much I doubt that it will. I do not know if two weeks is long enough to see enough change in his mouth. It seems like GSDs grow sometimes 1 part at a time. Cujo, for example, his ears and tail would grown, then the rest of him would catch up, and then his ears and tail would grow again.

It is always possible that while the specialist might be experienced with dogs in general, she may not be totally experienced in GSDs and how they grow. Maybe. And, if she has performed surgeries at a young age, then she would have no idea how that dog would turn out without a surgery. How many people are going to go back 2 years later? I really don't know.

How did this person come up with 5%?

 

[Ziltoid]

The 5% figure was a guess. I can't remember the exact wording used but it was in response to me asking whether she thought there was any chance at all of it coming good on its own (and showing examples of dogs who did, like Pan)... she said something like, in her experience or opinion it was very unlikely to grow into place and if she had to guess she would give it a 5% or less chance of happening.

Now, I am sure that dogs that have had their canines removed can live happy, healthy lives and obviously working in the field she does, she would see the worst case results of things like this going untreated (teeth punching through the roof of the mouth into the nasal cavity, infections etc.) so maybe she takes a safety first approach with it. If she told someone that it might fix itself and the owner didn't keep an eye on it which resulted in a worst case scenario, maybe it would look bad on her if the owner started going around telling everyone that she had told them to leave it and see if it got better... I don't know if that even crosses her mind, I am purely speculating here.

Agreed that once a dog has had teeth removed or cut down you will never know whether things would have got better on their own. That is what I am worried about - if I get surgery without being 100% sure it's the only option, I will always be questioning whether I did the right thing. On the other hand if things get worse and he is in pain, I'd hate to think that he is suffering because I can't make my mind up with what to do. He really doesn't seem to be in pain... but he lets me examine everything on him except the mouth which he is reluctant to show... maybe that's just him but my other dog happily lets me play around in her mouth - well I don't know how happy she is about it but she lets me without complaining. So maybe the mouth is hurting?

Also agree with them growing bits at a time, he has been going through short and stocky to long and gangly with over-sized ears etc. Maybe the jaw is just a bit behind... or maybe it's a problem, my normal vet did point out the overbite at 12 weeks so it's possible that he'll always have it.


The 2 weeks for a free follow up was just something she threw out there when she could see that I was planning on waiting to see if it gets better. If it's not causing more of a problem in 2 weeks I certainly won't be rushing in to get my free check up and make my mind up then. Obviously I don't like spending the money involved with seeing specialists but I think his teeth are more important than $160 a visit + whatever surgery costs may be involved.


My parents have a cat that has had things like heart murmurs picked up and he is still fine. At one stage they were told that he had a soaring white blood cell count after surgery to remove half an ear due to cancer, apparently the cell count was multiplying at such a rate that they were told he only had days to live... that was 2-3 years ago and he's still kicking on strong and healthy (with a normal cell count). The vets couldn't explain what happened just said that they were extremly glad to be wrong in that case.


The specialist gives seminars to vets here about dental issues and said that she would love to be proven wrong and have it grow out itself. She said if that happened she would use him as a case study... she just doesn't think it's going to happen.

Ahhh.. I'm rambling and still no closer to an answer... I'm off to see what else I can find out about overbites.

 

[Liesje]

I don't mind at all. I just wish I'd taken pictures earlier on when he was 5-6 months, but everyone said "don't even LOOK at his teeth right now or you will panic!" because they get so wonky at this age. So I tried hard to just ignore them until all the adult teeth came in. At that point I was still worried but everyone said give it a month or two and sure enough, it all got sorted out on its own.

One thing tons of people told me was that the lower jaw develops slower, so it's very common if not normal for the GSD puppies to have overbites, sometimes quite severe, while they are still teething and developing. I don't think the angle of Pan's adult teeth change, but his lower jaw finally developed out so everything "fit".

 

[wolfy dog]

My worry would be if you start to interfere at this young age and the jaw continues to develop that you end up worse than when you started, possibly preventing the self correction of his jaw and bite.
5% is still a chance.
As long as you can get enough food in him to grow up healthy I would wait a few more months, unless you see injury in his upper jaw.

 

[Liesje]

Re-reading the post from the specialist.....I don't know, like Sue says I'm not inclined to disagree with a specialist but...if they are recommending "removal" then what is the harm in waiting? What are they removing? Puppy teeth? Adult teeth? I guess personally I would be waiting until the puppy teeth are out and see where the adult teeth want to come in. 5 months is really young. Pan had a retained puppy tooth and I didn't have it removed until 7 months and even then I had people saying to wait and let it fall out on its own.

 

[Liesje]

Another thing I just thought of....do you remember how the puppy's teeth were around 8 weeks? A few people told me that generally how their mouth looks as a baby is how it will go back to once the adult teeth are in and "settle". So if you didn't notice any problems until during teething, it's possible there won't be any problems.

Whatever you decide, keep us updated. I'm curious to see what happens.

 

[wolfy dog]

Another thing I just thought of....do you remember how the puppy's teeth were around 8 weeks? A few people told me that generally how their mouth looks as a baby is how it will go back to once the adult teeth are in and "settle". So if you didn't notice any problems until during teething, it's possible there won't be any problems.

Whatever you decide, keep us updated. I'm curious to see what happens.

True. Same goes for gaits. If they look and move soundly as an 8 week old, they should be fine as an adult, providing good nutrition and appropriate exercise.

 

[Blanketback]

She suggested that while i wait i teach him to hold something in his mouth so that he's not in pain, and any growth can happen without the canines being jammed.

I did something similar - I was giving my puppy so many knuckle bones it wasn't funny. I mean, really probably, *too many* lol. But I was hoping that the constant gnawing on them would make the teeth align themselves.

I'm sorry that you're in this position. That was nice of her to offer the 2 week follow-up. Fingers crossed that your pup makes a great case study!

 

[stealthq]

I have a standard poodle, and base narrow canines are common in the breed - mine had them as a pup, worse than yours, and they completely corrected themselves with zero intervention on my part by the time all of his adult teeth were fully in. He now has a perfect scissors bite.

There are things you can do to encourage the teeth to move into proper position. You can get a ball very slightly bigger than the inside of the puppy's mouth and encourage him to hold it for a couple of minutes multiple times a day. My pet dental specialist fits them to the puppy's mouth for you - it's become an established technique. If the puppy won't hold the ball, you can put your thumbs in his mouth and gently apply pressure in the direction the teeth need to move to do the same thing. Again, do it for several minutes at a time, several times a day, or as often as you can. There are dental appliances that work as well, but it doesn't sound like your specialist is knowledgeable about them, or he/she would have suggested one already.

Anyway, the general rule of thumb is that removing the tooth is the absolute worst thing you can do unless there a problem of rot or irreparable damage. Those canines help stabilize the other teeth in the jaw. Remove them, esp. in a young puppy, and you frequently find the other teeth move in undesirable ways. Basically, you create more problems. If you end up needing to go the dental procedure route, better to shave it down and risk having to repeat the procedure than to remove the tooth.

 

[Ziltoid]

I don't mind at all. I just wish I'd taken pictures earlier on when he was 5-6 months, but everyone said "don't even LOOK at his teeth right now or you will panic!" because they get so wonky at this age. So I tried hard to just ignore them until all the adult teeth came in. At that point I was still worried but everyone said give it a month or two and sure enough, it all got sorted out on its own.

One thing tons of people told me was that the lower jaw develops slower, so it's very common if not normal for the GSD puppies to have overbites, sometimes quite severe, while they are still teething and developing. I don't think the angle of Pan's adult teeth change, but his lower jaw finally developed out so everything "fit".

I have read numerous articles and posts that mention the lower jaw growing slower in german shepherds so am really hoping that is making things look worse than they really are.

As for her comments on Pan's photos... well... not trying to doubt the specialist because she obviously has a great deal of knowledge on doggy dentistry but she was shown the photos already knowing that the dogs teeth came good on their own, so it's not like she could turn around and say that they wouldn't turn out ok without surgery.

Re-reading the post from the specialist.....I don't know, like Sue says I'm not inclined to disagree with a specialist but...if they are recommending "removal" then what is the harm in waiting? What are they removing? Puppy teeth? Adult teeth? I guess personally I would be waiting until the puppy teeth are out and see where the adult teeth want to come in. 5 months is really young. Pan had a retained puppy tooth and I didn't have it removed until 7 months and even then I had people saying to wait and let it fall out on its own.

She's talking about removing the bottom adult canines. The harm with leaving them in is a few things -

1. the pain that he in (I really can't tell if he is or not, his behaviour has not changed at all - she was confident that he is).
2. the teeth punching through the roof of the mouth
3. this causing problems with the upper canines because the lower ones are pushing them out of alignment.

Another thing I just thought of....do you remember how the puppy's teeth were around 8 weeks? A few people told me that generally how their mouth looks as a baby is how it will go back to once the adult teeth are in and "settle". So if you didn't notice any problems until during teething, it's possible there won't be any problems.

Whatever you decide, keep us updated. I'm curious to see what happens.

I didn't really look when he was 8 weeks old, I wasn't aware that these problems existed so unfortunately never really checked. I am sure if I ask the breeders if they checked they will say they did... but they know that I am going through this at the moment so the answer would be yes regardless of whether they actually had or not. They have been breeding down this line of females for at least 4 generations and have never had any other problems so I don't blame them if they haven't made a habit of giving the teeth a thorough check before selling the pups.

The first mention of a potential problem was my normal vet at 12 weeks of age when he mentioned that he had an overbite. At that stage he didn't expect it to be a problem and said to just see if things improved with age.

 

[Ziltoid]

My worry would be if you start to interfere at this young age and the jaw continues to develop that you end up worse than when you started, possibly preventing the self correction of his jaw and bite.
5% is still a chance.
As long as you can get enough food in him to grow up healthy I would wait a few more months, unless you see injury in his upper jaw.

I tend to agree with this. It's really hard to know what to do, if I take any corrective action now it's kind of guess work with how the teeth will end up on their own. This was something she mentioned when talking about cutting the teeth down and capping them - how do you know how far down the teeth would need to be cut? Apparently shaving would not be an option because dogs only have 1mm of enamel and any lower than that requires capping because you are into some kind of porous material.

I did something similar - I was giving my puppy so many knuckle bones it wasn't funny. I mean, really probably, *too many* lol. But I was hoping that the constant gnawing on them would make the teeth align themselves.

I'm sorry that you're in this position. That was nice of her to offer the 2 week follow-up. Fingers crossed that your pup makes a great case study!

Thanks. Yep, the best possible outcome will result in the case study.

Your method sounds similar to the ball/massage theory. Apparently the dog biting down on a ball enough can help push the teeth out a bit.

 

[Ziltoid]

I have a standard poodle, and base narrow canines are common in the breed - mine had them as a pup, worse than yours, and they completely corrected themselves with zero intervention on my part by the time all of his adult teeth were fully in. He now has a perfect scissors bite.

There are things you can do to encourage the teeth to move into proper position. You can get a ball very slightly bigger than the inside of the puppy's mouth and encourage him to hold it for a couple of minutes multiple times a day. My pet dental specialist fits them to the puppy's mouth for you - it's become an established technique. If the puppy won't hold the ball, you can put your thumbs in his mouth and gently apply pressure in the direction the teeth need to move to do the same thing. Again, do it for several minutes at a time, several times a day, or as often as you can. There are dental appliances that work as well, but it doesn't sound like your specialist is knowledgeable about them, or he/she would have suggested one already.

Anyway, the general rule of thumb is that removing the tooth is the absolute worst thing you can do unless there a problem of rot or irreparable damage. Those canines help stabilize the other teeth in the jaw. Remove them, esp. in a young puppy, and you frequently find the other teeth move in undesirable ways. Basically, you create more problems. If you end up needing to go the dental procedure route, better to shave it down and risk having to repeat the procedure than to remove the tooth.

Good to hear of another success story with the wait and see method.

To be fair to the specialist, she did mention the ball and massage methods but doesn't really seem to believe in them... at least that was the impression I got when she was talking about it. She only mentioned it right at the end when she knew I was going to wait a while and said that some people try them and explained the idea behind it. I figure it can't hurt to at least try them out - he doesn't really like holding anything in his mouth for extended periods of time unless it's a game so I figure I'll have most luck with the massage.


She said that there are basically 2 schools of thought on vet dentistry - The American way which is do anything to keep the tooth, and the Canadian way which is fix the problem (surgery / remove the teeth). She said she tends to go the Canadian way. Apparently there are only 2 vet dental specialists in my city (or maybe it was state?) her and someone else. She said that the other one follows the American method... maybe I should look them up and see if I can get a referral for a second opinion.

We spoke long and hard about what removing the tooth would do to the structure and strength of the jaw. She said that the hole fills with bone so no strength is lost and the the other teeth won't lose position because of it.


In a way we seem to have completely different view points on how we should proceed. Obviously I have no experience or knowledge outside of a few days searching the net so my thoughts are purely based on what I feel most comfortable with.

Her order of preference on what we should do is:

1. Remove the bottom canines
2. Cut down and cap them
3. Braces
4. Wait and see - I include the ball and massage methods here


My order of preference is:

1. Wait and see
2. Braces
3. Cut down and cap
4. Remove the teeth


Admittedly she did say that she would love to try the braces basically as an experiment to see what she could do. However it would be multi-stage and require frequent re-attachments every time be knocked them off. Apparently there is no such thing as a dog grade cement used for dog braces so they use human grade - humans can be told to not bite on things that they shouldn't - dogs use their mouths for everything and you can't really tell a dog not to pick up a stick or rock and bite on it... There is just no way I could ever remove absolutely everything from my property that he shouldn't be biting on, let alone things he finds on our outings.

The cost of braces she estimated at $3000-4000 + how ever many re-attachment costs he would need. I can't really afford that. She also said that there is no guarantee it would work. If I could get a guarantee that spending $3000-4000 as a one off cost would definitely fix things I would scrape the money together somehow (take out a loan or something) but I can't afford it on the off chance it works.

 

[Ziltoid]

Oh and his last puppy tooth came out either last night or this morning so that's one less thing to worry about.

I have no idea if it will make a difference but it obviously couldn't have helped by still being there.


I'm going to add a link to a couple more photos I took today when I can get them off my phone. Just got a new PC so have to install software and then get the photos off the phone before I can upload them.