Today has been a bad day. Whenever I personally get sick, I get really depressed and sort of lonely and everything feels weird. Now that Kody’s sick, I feel the exact same way.
However, I just read some good news. Dog root canals are common among heavy chewers and quite successful. The root canal is actually less painful than a tooth extraction. Now that I know the extent of Kody’s chewing, I can make better choices than bully sticks in the future so this hopefully won’t happen again.
Apparently Eddie from Frasier has had seven root canals. There may even be a better choice called a vital pulpotomy available to Kody since the tooth is healthy otherwise.
To tell you the truth, I needed this news. I was really beating myself up about giving Kody bully sticks. No, I didn’t know they could be bad, and for most dogs who are regular chewers they aren’t. But still, as a parent, it’s tough to feel you might have put your dog in harm’s way. Now I feel a little better that this is just something that happens to heavy chewers and this lets us know the extent that Kody chews and we can make this the last time this happens.
From all appearances, Kody seems to be doing much better than I am. But I still can’t wait to get him fixed up again. I love him so much.
2 Comments
Alicia
Matt, you are an excellent pet parent to Kody, so don’t beat yourself up! The trouble is identified and once this issue is resolved, all will be better and you can take it from there.
Being parents to children is a great challenge too, but most are able to communicate their pains and problems. That makes a big difference.
I wasn’t familiar with bully sticks until you wrote about them, so I went to my local “Dachshund owned” store and asked about them. The owner showed me the Baby Bull sticks, and they are much smaller and soften pretty quickly. Oskar actually sits next to me and drops the stick on my lap so that I’ll hold it while he chews. This way, he also doesn’t swallow too big of a piece as it gets smaller, and the whole process only takes about 10 minutes. Quality parenting time!
Matt
Thanks for the words of encouragement.
When we first got the bully sticks I thought they were so great because Kody could actually spend all day chewing on them. But then, like his dad, he wanted to figure out how to do it faster and better, he would only chew for a few hours a day but go through the bully sticks just as fast. I think that’s where we got into trouble.
I labelled Kody as a heavy chewer before this happened, but now I also see that means that he can turn safe toys for other dogs into dangerous toys for himself.
I hope the dentist will have some good ideas on alternatives, they see this often enough.
By the way, my mom was surprised to hear they have dog and cat dentists. It is kind of a surprise. But now that I know more, it really makes sense that one could specialize in pet dentistry and have plenty of business.