The Ball and tooth

In which Guinness meets The Ball and loses a tooth..

This afternoon, my friend Michelle O. and her daughter came out to meet Guinea-pig for the first time. They were running a little late, so I went ahead and brought Guinness into the paddock and brought out a bunch of toys including his new surcingle, his halter & rope, a bridle with the "comfort snaffle" (and no reins), a brush box and my large white exercise ball.

He proceeded to investigate everything - throwing the brushes around, nibbling the surcingle, tasting the bit, etc. I started to walk through the "squeeze thru" in the fence with the ball on my head and Guinness came right over and kissed me on the lips (with the ball on my head). ;-) I decided then to wait to let him play with the ball until our visitors arrived.

Here is some video of Guinness meeting The Ball:



After filming this, I kissed him on the nose and remarked aloud, "Gee, you have bad breath today." This was weird since I nuzzle him all of the time and hadn't smelled anything gross before. Not two minutes later, Guinness was mouthing the snap on his lead rope when "plink" and out falls his TOOTH.

I stuck my fingers in his mouth and took a look. There was a two inch long grody-looking greenish/black area on his gum with tooth root bits in the midst of it. The tooth that broke off was the one just forward of where his left wolf-tooth would be (if he still had it). That certainly explained the stinky breath..

I immediately called the vet, Dr. Lamb, and she came right on over. Once here, she scooped some food out of the hole with her finger (the greenish black gook) and rinsed the gash with clorhexidine. She said that he had probably scraped his gum on something and knocked the tooth loose. Then when he chomped on the snap, the tooth broke right off. Fortunately, it was a baby tooth. Unfortunately, his permanent tooth won't replace it for about 2 more years! The root was below the gumline, so she decided to leave it in position so that his other teeth wouldn't shift around.




Here is a photo of Dr. Lamb with Guinness.














Here is the hole up close.














And here is the tooth!












Dr. Lamb instructed me to rinse the hole with salt water twice a day for the next few days, and put Guinness on antibiotics for a week while it heals over. (I just put the whole pills and some Bute powder in with his grain this evening and he gobbled them down.)

This is the second vet visit that we've had in two months. (The first one was for a gooky eye.) I hope this is it for him for a while!