BEAR DRILLS
Armenian zoo treats 30st General’s toothache by flying in British dentist
IF toothache’s leaving us a little grizzly, we visit the dentist.
Unless you’re a 30-stone bear with a sore head, that is – and then the dentist comes to you... very carefully.
In this case the patient was General, a brown bear rescued from cruel captivity in Armenia.
The dental expert was Paul Cassar, who is more used to treating families at his private high street practice in Chichester, West Sussex.
Mr Cassar flew to Yerevan in the former Soviet state to extract four of the bear’s teeth and treat a painful abscess.
Most of the dentist’s daily appointments in the UK take around 25 minutes and an injection to numb their gums.
For General, a cocktail of powerful tranquillisers and anaesthesia had to be administered for the four-hour procedure at Yerevan Zoo.
Asking the patient to ‘open wide’ was out of the question, so General’s jaws were clamped open before the work began.
Mr Cassar, assisting a team of vets from the British charity International Animal Rescue, said: ‘It was tough going but he has recovered well and is free from the excruciating pain he must have been suffering.’
General, 19, was rescued from a private zoo kept by a former Armenian army general.
Mr Cassar has treated more than 150 bears as part of the charity’s drive to save and then outlaw dancing bears in India.
His dental nurse Charlotte Callaway-Goldstone said: ‘The team had to work hard to get the teeth free because bears have a much tougher bone structure. We gave him the same care we do for all patients.’