Frequently asked questions

Why do you need to sedate my horse for the dental exam?

Being an experienced equine veterinarian, Marieke has a range of different sedatives and painkillers available to her, and can carefully tailor a combination of these for your horse in order to maximise safety and effectiveness. This is very different from the use of oral pastes which carry only a one-sided sedative without painkiller, can give varied results with both slow onset and recovery. By avoiding oral sedation you minimise risk by having the veterinarian (Marieke) present to immediately remedy any adverse reactions.

No - the price of a high quality dental from Dental Vet only costs you the equivalent of four bags of feed. This dental treatment will improve your horses feed conversion dramatically, and you’ll be assured that there are no underlying oral issues affecting overall health and performance.

Additionally, you won’t be doubling up on the cost of having to get a vet out to sedate your horse, and your thorough Dental Vet examination means any problems are detected (and treated) well before they advance. Visiting our clinic means there is no travel fee.There is huge value in our high quality, safe and kind veterinary dentals.

People who experience ongoing dental pain say they grow accustomed to the discomfort in their mouth but feel grumpy, less fit, and avoid cold drinks or chewing on the painful area. The responses in horses are similar! We should park our traditional idea that, if the horse is in good condition, without swelling of the jaw and dropping feed, the teeth cannot be that bad.

Dental disease in horses shows itself by gradually altered behaviour: many horses are flat, grumpy, showing certain performance quirks or being quiet. Many people mistakenly interpret this as the horse’s personality. However these horses do show facial expressions of chronic pain (Equine Pain Face by Dr. K. Gleerup), and are not always recognisable if you are unfamiliar with these. Most signs of serious disease inside the mouth are often very small - combine that with a narrow dark row of teeth surrounded by the cheeks and tongue in a moving animal and you will start to understand the challenges of diagnosing a dental problem in a horse!

What actually gets done in horse’s mouth when my dental provider is working there?

Traditionally, people talk about sharp points and malocclusions (ill fitting teeth) that need rasping and balancing. But it’s important to understand that underlying or resulting problems also need identification and treatment, such as tooth decay, oral parasites or unhealthy gums packed with feed. It is alarming how many horses present with these common problems!

With Dental Vet, you can rest assured that any existing or developing problems will be diagnosed and treated during a routine dental exam. Most of them can be treated on the day, and generally within the scope and cost of a routine dental vet appointment. This is one of the huge benefits of using Dental Vet: Marieke has advanced qualifications in veterinary dentistry and surgery.

Generally, people know that there are differences in hand rasping, motorized instruments, sedation or no sedation. To make up your mind about what kind of dental service is right for you and your horse, you could consider the following:

• In order to diagnose developing problems or diseases in the mouth beyond malocclusions, the person providing the dental exam should be trained and registered in this field. This core skill is restricted to veterinarians and especially vets with advanced qualifications.

• Treatment beyond rasping and balancing of teeth is only offered by vets and especially veterinarians with advanced qualifications. Examples of this are treatment options for unhealthy gums (periodontal disease) or recognizing a bad root canal (a tiny 2mm defect indicating an exposed pulp).

• The exam MUST be visual, and must be done with a bright light, mirror and probe. Imagine your own dentist just having a feel or using an average camping headlight to have a glance at your teeth, without a mirror and a probe.

• The mouth needs to be very still and very clean. Imagine lying in the chair yourself chatting away to your dentist with half a salad in there!

• The treatment MUST be visual. Imagine the damage to soft tissue and teeth in your mouth should your dentist use instruments without looking... and the same goes for horses. Lacerations in the mouth or over-reduced teeth are common outcomes of such dental treatments.

There is no golden answer to this one! It all depends on your horse’s individual anatomy, any problems found in the mouth, plus their level of training and performance. Your Dental Vet appointment is the perfect time to bring your current bridle and the bit(s) for review - Marieke is more than happy to discuss the facial and oral ‘landmarks’ you need to check when fitting a bit, and help you choose an appropriate bit for your horse.

It takes approximately 4 weeks before the extraction sites of most wolf teeth close fully (much longer if the person removing the wolf tooth does not use the correct surgical procedure). This means that it is best to plan ahead and schedule a dental well before your young horse is started, or time it with your in-work horse at a time that least disrupts your schedule.

If you have a horse that requires safe, complete and pain-free wolf tooth extraction at any stage of his life, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Yes! All wolf teeth have nerves. All young and many old wolf teeth have a root canal containing pulp. All wolf teeth have sensitive gum attached, this means that removing any wolf tooth is just as painful as removing any human tooth. Even if the visible part of the wolf tooth is very small, it can still have a root that is much longer than this crown.

Many wolf teeth also have oddly shaped roots, which can be curved and positioned in a wide variety of ways. This means the root needs to be carefully and skilfully loosened before lifting the tooth out. A wolf tooth should never be ‘pulled’ because that just breaks the crown off, leaving the rest of the wolf tooth in the mouth. Your horse then has to deal with a broken tooth, causing pain, infection and (unsurprisingly) bitting problems. By providing injectable sedation and a nerve block around the wolf tooth, pain can be prevented and correct extraction achieved.

Do horses have pulp in all their teeth?

Yes, they do. Pulp is the soft tissue inside a tooth with nerves, vessels and living tooth producing cells. It is very important to keep this tissue safe during a dental. Removing excess tooth over certain areas or overheating a tooth can cause the pulp tissues to die. Unfortunately, Marieke has to remove diseased teeth regularly caused by overzealous dental manual rasping or motorized burring by dental providers.

In people, it is well known that infection from the mouth can cause heart disease in people. In horses, bacteria and toxins associated with unhealthy gums or other diseases also enter the body and cause havoc there. Good dental health means your horse’s body stays in tip top shape.

Ponies (or horses) with ‘squirrel cheeks’ do suffer from dental disease. It’s often said that squirrel cheeks are just the result of a habit of putting feed into the cheeks, or that teeth are misplaced, but that the animal is fine. If you know or own a pony with this description, please seek a professional exam.