Vet do we know, after all?

FIRST she asked me but she didn’t like the answer, so she came back a week later and asked to see someone else.

They told her the same as I had but she didn’t agree, so a few days later the vet down the road phoned to say she had come in to ask him to have a look and could we forward her case records.

Two days after that, she came back and complained that he had just told her what we had and that he had charged her more.

It would be four weeks before we’d see her again – and by then it was too late.

During that month, she had consulted Google and put out requests for opinions on a wide variety of Facebook forums (212 useful replies from a wide range of people including painters, plumbers, cleaners, bankers, a lollipop lady and an architect but, sadly, no vets).

She had talked to her friends and family and asked their advice, despite none of them having any medical knowledge. She had also, in a rare thoughtful moment, contacted the breeder who said she didn’t know but that she would ask her vet and phone other owners of the litter and ask them to get their pups checked.

Later, the breeder returned her call to say her vet agreed with us and that three other pups were affected.

Finally, her decision had been made when getting a late-night taxi home. The driver told her he thought our advice was ridiculous and who on earth would want to subject a poor wee puppy to general anaesthesia.

Happy at that someone else was on her side at last, she failed to attend her surgical appointment and only returned when her puppy was “getting a little mouthy”.

As I said, too late. Her pup was suffering from base narrow canines, a condition in which the lower temporary canines are too close together so that they press painfully into the upper hard palate.

Careful extraction of the baby teeth under anaesthesia allows room for the adult canines to move laterally as they erupt, preventing the problem becoming permanent. But this has to be done quickly if it is to succeed.

Failure to follow advice can result in the adult teeth having to be sawn in half and root canal treated.