Dental Vet; Equine vet practice for dental health and surgery

20/11/2025

Golden. Star dapples. All dressed up for the visit in a halter matching the stocks 😎😎😎

20/11/2025

Now that is showing confidence in front of one’s dental veterinarian…🤣🤣

16/11/2025

Indeed.

An odontoplasty, or “float”, should only be done following a thorough visual oral examination to look for any pathology. If your horse doesn’t have any malocclusions, or abnormalities in his or her bite, the only part of your horse’s teeth that should be reduced are the sharp enamel points along the cheek edge of the maxillary teeth and the tongue edge of the mandibular teeth.

There should not be any sensitivity associated with this portion of the teeth if odontoplasty is performed correctly. Severe reduction of these points can occur just as easily with either hand floats or motorized equipment. If your horse does appear uncomfortable or begins quidding following a dental visit, your veterinarian should be informed and will likely recommend a follow-up appointment.

Thank you to the Horse Owner Education Committee for providing this information.

02/11/2025

Congratulations to all participants and organisers of this fab event. The camaraderie and atmosphere was amazing. Thank you so much for the collab 🌸🌸

30/10/2025

Vet nurse Racheal and classy Amber taking out show hunter classes and Rising star champion. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

EPIC Recruitment Horse Rising Star Champion - Rachael Banks and Amber Skies

30/10/2025

This is what an extraction site of a blind (retained) wolf tooth looks like. Clean incision that folds neatly closed. No gross trauma, no butchery.

You’re the only advocate the horse has 🫶⭐️

Fyi the slight swelling of the palatal rugae below the incision are the local anaesthetic injection.

14/10/2025

Please horse owners, if caries or periodontal disease is noted: please have this examined and treated by a MANZCVS qualified veterinarian. These treatments are restricted to veterinarians, and a stitch in time is key.

Doing teeth does not 'manage' periodontal disease or caries; these require treatment equivalent to people-dentistry and are only offered by suitably qualified and kitted out MANZCVS vets.

The blue line indicates how much of the tooth has been dissolved by caries (decay) and the red arrow shows the decay now involving dentine over the pulp horn (root canal).

Please technicians and sedation providing vets, please do not simply 'write the words' in your own charts (have seen it twice today, combined with the 'mis-diagnosis' porous enamel whatever that may be). It had misled the owners into thinking it had been dealt with. True professionals are transparent about their scope of practice whilst not throwing anyone under the bus.🙏

10/10/2025

It was filling check up time!! Number of years on, all 6 fillings are in place, intact yet wearing down at the same rate of the tooth.

I apply a 'only if the hand is forced' attitude to placing restoratives in horse cheek teeth. Science is moving fast, vets can do some amazing stuff. But that does NOT mean I do these lightly. Welfare and Wallet (yours, not mine) come first.

This is human restorative material and placed very similarly to human fillings. It's just that these are about 4 to 8 cm (!) deep in a tooth I cannot place an instrument directly onto like in your mouth.
to look 'into' the cavity, we have to use a scope and coordinate the drill looking at a screen. And the tooth is generally attached to a 500 kg flight animal. So these are quite technical to do.

09/10/2025

Love travelling with our completely cordless radiography equipment, to provide you decision making on the spot.
Does this tooth stay or go? Does it require a 'filling' (pulp therapy and restoration)?

These are big decisions that should be left to advanced veterinary practitioners that can demonstrate to you that they have lots of education to back up those decisions.

Dental vet is the only vet practice on the South Island that can offer your horse a variety of root canal therapies. There is only one other vet on the NI providing these. And you know, if doing NOTHING is the best for your horse, that is exactly what we do. But your horse does need a VETERINARY diagnosis.

We get these cases referred and are grateful to the vets who refer these. Considering the large amount of painful 'root canals' I find in my own 'routine' dental exams, I have to conclude that the much smaller amount of these referred root canals, means these painful teeth get MISSED or DISMISSED by technicians and vets.

That means your head shaker for instance will continue to head shake, no matter how many herpes vaccines, new bits or supplements you throw at him. Yeah, I just wrote that. It is Friday, I am tired, shoo* me.

This pony?? Has a wide, diseased hollow tube in it's tooth where a normal root canal (pulp horn) used to be (blue). And this area will slowly continue to deteriorate.
He has a DIY repair inside it's tooth (pink arrow), because horse teeth are friggin amazing at that.
But, we do see some chronic changes (yellow).

29/09/2025

Ahw thanks 🌸🌸🌸!! Hi Marieke. Thank you so much for treating my Teddy. As always your skill and professionalism shone through resulting in an unstressed pony who had a positive experience. Your quiet manner suits Teddy perfectly and I know that each visit will be easier and easier. I have received the clinical report. Thank you again for your wonderful service. Huge hugs from me and Teddy 🧸. ###