Dutch Shepherd Forum

So. The other day I noticed the left side of Moko's face, along the cheekbone under his eye, was swollen. He seems completely unaffected by it, other than the visual loss of symmetry to his facial structure. And easy to miss unless looked at from certain angles, as his brindle is camoflaging! I figured he just bit his cheek or something roughhousing with the girls. The next day it looked less pronounced, but then later was worse again and upon further prodding, it is hard bone, not flesh swelling. So I've deduced it's very likely an abcess ofthe root on that upper carnassial. My vet felt it didn't warrant an emergency weekend fee, as he's displaying zero signs of discomfort, acting totally normal in all ways, so we have an appointment for Tue. morning with directions to call if he gets worse. In the meanwhile I've made a paste of raw honey, cinnamon, apple cider vinegar, and nasturtium which I'm massaging on his gums at the base of that tooth 3x daily, and it seems to have helped as the boney protrusion seems slightly less. Any thoughts or advice or experience to share until our vet visit?

My question about neutering, (typing laboriously on my phone and wanted to post last msg before I lost it all to a time-out.) Moko is 15 months old. I intended to wait to neuter him at 2 years old. Odds are, if he will need to be sedated to have a root canal or the tooth removed, my vet will strongly promote neutering him at the same time. Financially, as well as not re-doing surgical procedures and antibiotics and so on, it makes sense to just do it all at once, rather than have to go back and put him through additional procedures down the line, but I also wanted to let him be fully done with growing before neutering. I know the recommendations there are 18-24 months. Thoughts or feedback on this?

So update... I was correct, and it was in fact, an infection/abcess at the roots of one of his upper teeth, happily though, it wasn't actually that upper carnassial but the smaller molar directly behind it. Sucks that it was an infected tooth that needed extraction, but happy that it wasn't the one with extra roots and it leaves a smaller gap in his mouth than the removal of that larger tooth would have meant. Also good in that all of his other teeth look fine as did the maxillary bone, meaning we took care of it quickly enough that it didn't spread and get worse. Most likely the cause of the problem was either over-eager chewing of a bone or antler, or one of his body-slams in rough-housing play, which caused a small crack in the molar, which them created a "highway" for bacteria to get into that deep sheltered root area to take over.

Moko did great at the vet, is home and will be eating soft food for five days and not allowed to rough-house/jaw-wrestle with the girls during that time, (much to his chagrin,) and I'm pumping up the probiotics to help offset the antibiotics he'll be on for the next week. They also gave us some anti-inflammatory/pain meds for five days to help his comfort level while the gap in his gums heals.

We chose to still hold off on neutering him, and wait until he's 2 as I'd originally intended, so for now he gets to keep his knads a little while longer.

Glad it wasn't worse. There's much to be said for observations and staying on top of things.

Heh-heh...good luck keeping him low-key. Kind of like holding a lit fire-cracker.

So sorry to hear of Moko's problems...I always keep Flagyl(Metronidazole) 500mg tabs as it is a better anti-infective for bone infections than it is an anti-protozoal for Giardia.

It's a great drug to have for Diarrhea as ~40 per cent of dogs feces tested at the IDEXX PCR DNA reference lab test + for Clostridium Perfringens Enteroxin A producing capable bacteria vs. 8 per cent + for Giardia.