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Dental Tribune U.S. Edition

area where an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. Some horses do fine and don’t have their teeth floated for many years, but those are the minority. Thus, most horses need to be evalu- ated and have their teeth floated regularly. A horse with bad teeth can lose weight and get colicky, which is our term for abdominal pain. A horse’s intestinal track is very long and nothing is spot-welded down, so if it becomes filled with gas and it floats up and rotates, this can be fatal for the horse. Is there a semester or a few weeks on equine dentistry during veteri- nary school? Can people actually specialize in equine dentistry? not see external swelling because a horse has a hard facial crest. Rather, the horse will go off his feed or he’ll become a very slow eater. However, on the mandibular teeth you will see swelling. It’s common in young horses where you’ll see these little eruption bumps from the new tooth coming in. Madibular teeth have very long roots and one has to be very careful during extraction because you can fracture the mandible in a diseased bone situation. What are the basics a horse owner needs to be aware of in terms of taking care of the animal’s teeth? All young horses, that is, those 5 years of age and younger, should have their teeth examined twice a year. Up until 1 year of age, you’re just evaluating the occlusion of the arcades. If they have an overbite or underbite, you would address that. Typically you wouldn’t start bal- ancing a horse’s mouth, which is called “floating teeth” in layman’s terms, without the horse being at least a year old. Once they are that age, it’s best to do an examination twice a year. At 5 years of age, all the teeth have erupted. At that point, the teeth are worn down a little more natu- rally and you can drop down to once a year evaluations. Some horses will have abnormalities that, if addressed early, those situations never become problems. Equine dentistry is an Although there is a board certifica- tion process for veterinary dental medicine, there currently is no spe- cific “equine only” tract for this spe- cialty. Should a veterinarian wish to become board certified in dentistry, he or she would be required to learn and study all species, including equine, as they pertain to dentistry. This field is increasing in popular- ity as there is growing interest from owners and trainers to have quality dental procedures performed in a safe and painless manner. There are very few equine dental residency programs available in this country. There are several schools that will educate a layman or a veteri- narian and provide a certificate in equine dentistry, and this is with or without a medical license. Of course, this is not the same as being a board-certified dentist. In veterinary school, all first year students take anatomy and learn the dentition of many animal species — dog, cat, horse, etc. So it’s taught, and as you go through your fourth year of veterinary school, which is a clinical year, you have opportunities to work on horses to get firsthand experience. Yet, today there is no such thing as an equine dentistry residency to get additional training. There are some very capable practitioners who are available, who do wet labs and continuing educa- tion in order to teach other, young- er veterinarians things they have learned through the years. There are also a couple of journals that publish dental articles. The American Veterinary Medi- cal Association is one such journal. Another is the Journal of Equine Dentistry, which has an editorial board, and both veterinarians and certified equine dentists submit cases. Equine dentistry is indeed a growing field. For years it was just float teeth, meaning the goal was to get rid of the sharp points. Yet, we’ve learned and evolved and now we’re starting to find things like open pulp chambers, and the area of restor- ative dentistry is becoming less of a black hole. There are some people using perio units where they are using high-speed drills and subsequently filling cavities and using impression materials. So, it’s evolving, just not at a fast pace. We’re getting there, but we’re very far behind our dentist counter- parts who work on humans. There are some veterinarians who have dedicated their lives to equine den- tistry, and those folks are extremely knowledgeable. DT Equine Dentistry DENTAL TRIBUNE | May 201114A AD f DT page 12A Richard B. Tanner, DVM Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital P.O. Box 12070 Lexington, KY 40580 (859) 233-0371 btanner@roodandriddle.com Abstract