Straight From The Horse’s Mouth

Verified By A Third Party

Sunday June 14, 2015 at 8 am – I am working on 3 horses that have been with me for a very long time. The owner and I got to thinking about how long. To do this, we thought back to events, then asked if we knew each other then.

9-11 was my first event I thought of. Yes we knew each other then. That was 14 years ago.

The owner then recalled that she had purchased the farm in 1997. Then I recalled that I had worked on her horses at a boarding barn and I remember her telling me about the new farm on a road who’s name was the same as the name of a road I knew as a little boy – Hardscrabble Road. That move was 18 years ago. The horses are now 21, 22, and 31 years old.

A month ago, the owner had her veterinarian out to look at one of the horses. He had brought a new assistant along and they performed a complete physical that included the teeth. To their surprise, they announced that the teeth were remarkably in great shape!

There is more to this story. For a long time, 2 of these horses required sedation and pain medication to work on them and one of these two needed Valium. Today however, I needed no drugs as they offered little resistance as I addressed the slight edge worked up over the past year.

The routine maintenance requested by this horse owner every 6 months for 18 years is what has caused these teeth to never be an issue in the lives of these horses. I see this repeated everywhere I work on a consistent basis for 5 or more years. The teeth straighten as if they are wearing orthodontic braces. The mouth remains healthy. There is never a need for feed changes.

At the end of my visit, I realized there is one thing I forgot to do. I need to take pictures of these horses’ incisors. I have never touched the incisors and it would be a good thing to document their wear because they also are worn evenly. This would help me to prove my theory that angled incisors are created by altered jaw and tongue movement by pain producing sharp points on the cheek teeth.

Instead, I will need to be satisfied that the great shape of the teeth had been verified by an independent third party who was looking for some work and found none. Thanks to all of you who believe in preventive dentistry and have it performed every 6 months before it becomes a painful issue. It really makes a difference.