L7 Equine Dentistry LLC

24/08/2024

Parking arrangements in my driveway for my haul-in customers.

It is a constant struggle with parking in my driveway. Most days in the week there are multiple rigs parked here. On a full day, there will always be somebody who parks on the edge of the road to unload horses, even when the entire driveway is empty. DRIVERS ON THIS HIGHWAY ARE THE WORST DRIVERS IN UTAH!!!! Parking and unloading on the edge of the road is very dangerous and absolutely unnecessary. With the speed limit is 55 mph many drivers view this as a mere suggestion.

The red line is the southern approach. The blue line is the northern approach. The green lines demonstrate the correct way to park in this massive driveway. There will rarely be more than two vehicles at one time but you can see how many rigs can actually fit.

DO park in a way that allows you to pull forward to leave the property.
DO wait your turn before unloading your horses.
DO pull completely off the road.

DO NOT try to pull around the north side of the house.
DO NOT back anywhere to park, this is absolutely unnecessary.
DO NOT hit my privacy fence. There is now a large boulder there and you will damage your trailer fender!! (I can’t believe I have to say this)
DO NOT back your horse trailer onto my concrete pad in front of my garage. It is a large area free of vehicles for a reason.

I understand that everyone comes with differing trailer towing skills. I have made this process as easy as possible and a tiny bit of trailer etiquette is necessary. Thank you, and I will be seeing many of you soon!

07/06/2024

The horse owner stated that her horse had something strange going on with her 5-year old gelding’s teeth. He is ridden in dressage and his upper canines were positioned very close to his cheek teeth and these canines interfered with the bit. Her veterinarian had noticed this issue a year ago (horse age 4) and had flattened the teeth down so they weren’t sharp.

Before I looked at this mouth I suspected the vet was incorrect. First, it is very rare that mature canine teeth will exist in a 4-year old horse. Second, we are in Utah and there are only a couple veterinarians who know anything about equine dentistry and neither of them are practicing much these days. Once I felt inside this mouth, I immediately knew we were dealing with large and forward-placed wolf teeth.

The horse owner was in disbelief until I showed her the un-erupted upper canine teeth that were located in the proper position. She had been using a rubber bit to ride this horse because a metal bit caused too many problems with those teeth. This problem was easily solved and this little horse will begin carrying a normal bit soon!

Proper dentistry involves a specific education. If you follow my page you’ll know my opinion on this. Even the most talented equine veterinarian may actually have zero education in dentistry because they don’t teach that in vet school. A vet school graduate will have to attend additional schooling to be educated in dentistry and most vets are not interested in that. Your best bet is to make sure that your dental practitioner is certified through the IAED, which requires an actual dental education before one can take the exam to become certified. Veterinarians and non-vets are welcome to attempt certification.

15/05/2024

Bilateral sheer mouth.

Typically, when a horse has a “sheer mouth”, or an excessively steep molar table angle, it will be on one side and not both. This lucky horse has it on both sides!

The cause of steep table surfaces like these is an improper chewing/grinding pattern. There is more up/down motion of the jaw than there is lateral motion. This could be due to injury or sickness that initially impact the ability to chew correctly and then the teeth will wear improperly. This horse is also prone to choking on his feed. Maybe he has a tough time swallowing improperly chewed feed?

The way to remedy a sheer angle is to be fairly aggressive on the long side of the teeth. Notice there is still textured surface near the roof of the mouth but the outer (lateral) half of the tooth surface has been reduced substantially. This allows a renewed freedom of movement side-to-side. I will see these horses every 6 months for 2 or 3 visits and these mouths generally clean up very well!

01/05/2024

The veterinary shortage is here. This is a great video, created by a fantastic veterinarian, that discusses this issue and she gives suggestions on how you can improve your own situation.

Find the time to watch this! I don’t share much information from the vet world but this is very relevant to today’s horse owners!

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/2r3dWHuDeGNturAt/?mibextid=KsPBc6

25/04/2024

Veterinarians who are stuck in a non-compete contract may be interested in this! You may have a chance to break out on your own if that’s what you desire

On April 23, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued its final rule prohibiting all non-compete agreements for all employees at all levels, with only extremely limited exceptions.The FTC’s much-anticipated action follows its January 2023 proposed rule and its review of over 26,000 public c...

15/04/2024

PART 2: newly purchased stallion.

All debris was rinsed or picked from between the teeth. This included use of dental picks and a water jet hand piece. The largest diameter of debris was roughly the size of a pencil. The longest particles were more than an inch in length. The chewing surface containing the ETR was reduced. The lower cheek teeth were floated and contoured. The entire mouth was balanced. The blind wolf teeth were removed.

24 hours after this work, this young stallion was eating with excitement. He was no longer drooling.

We will feed him hay cubes for the foreseeable future. This will eliminate his access to whole stems that can lodge into those spaces between his teeth. His mouth will be checked regularly for any changes.

The good news for the spaces between his teeth is that as he loses his baby teeth and adult teeth replace them, the spaces might close.

15/04/2024

PART 1: newly purchased stallion. This is a lot to unpack, so I’m using two posts.

This 2-yr old stallion was seen by a vet January 15, 2024 and given a “race float”. This vet clinic doesn’t chart maintenance dental work, so there’s no record of anything after the bill is paid. This stallion is now at my house and he was skinny and ate slowly. The second day at my house we noticed him drooling and holding his nose off to the side. We brought him into the office and looked him over.

This is what was noted:
-a foul odor emitting from his mouth.

-spaces between all lower premolars, containing sticks he had chewed on in the months before being purchased. Interestingly, since his January dental he had been housed in a stall and fed high quality feed.

-mild-to-severe lesions on the tongue from those sticks rubbing on it and from constant salivation. In cases like this, there are mild “acid burns” on some of the soft tissue. The acid comes from the bacteria in the degrading feed mixed with saliva.

-Excessive Transverse Ridging (ETR) on the cheek teeth. This c**t had started reining training and ETR greatly impacts the horse’s ability to collect and give laterally to the bit. This is really common in young mouths and can be easily reduced by an educated practitioner.

-sharp edges under the tongue adding to the discomfort caused by the trapped debris between the teeth.

-massive blind wolf teeth on both upper bars. This large vet clinic overlooks blind wolf teeth almost 100% if the time. Blind wolf teeth have the same effect on bitting as normal wolf teeth and should be removed in all horses who will carry a bit.

The previous dental work can clearly be seen on the front edges of the upper, first, cheek tooth and on the cheek side of the rest of the uppers. There was no obvious work done on the lower cheek teeth. It is assumed that the sticks between the teeth were not present at that time, however, it is not likely this horse found branches to chew on in his stall, meaning he’s had those sticks wedged between his teeth the entire time. Because this vet clinic chooses not to keep any dental records, I question their ability to see small details that would normally be charted (spaced teeth, foreign debris, blind wolf teeth, etc).

Continued in the next post…

01/04/2024

Story time!

I recently visited a friend and customer to work on a group of horses he had put together. At the end of the first day, we finished early, he saddled a horse for me and we team roped in his arena. He warned me about reining the horse I rode with a lot of pressure. She didn’t need much help doing her job. She was being leased by my friend and was on the list for day two of dentals.

Riding a strange horse, with someone else’s tack, a different brand of rope than I was used to, and riding in work boots made things even more of a challenge (I don’t normally take my riding boots on road trips). I nodded for my first steer and the mare did her job. A couple swings out of the box and I caught horns. I guess I reined her harder than I should have and almost lost my seat when she turned left. I grinned. It had been over a year since I roped out of a box. That was fun!

I caught a dozen more steers and finally got dialed in with this mare. She is known for getting to the pay window at roping jackpots regularly. She can head, heel, and breakaway rope. She’s the real deal.

I had wrongly assumed that I had worked on her previously. I was certain that she was one of “my regulars”. The way she performed indicated that she was in near perfect health and in top condition. As she was brought into my stocks, I was informed that I had never worked on her before but that the owner thought she’d had a dental roughly 4 years previous.

This was the mouth. Now, before the Facebook attack dogs start frothing at the mouth about “abuse” or “inhumane treatment”, let me state that this mare is worth a lot of money and had been treated like equine royalty. She earns her place with her actual winnings.

Moral of the story: a horse with dental problems may have zero physical indications. They may be a top athlete with shiny hair and under great care. My mission is to educate every horse owner and here’s another owner who’s now a better caretaker.

Without those large rear hooks to get in her way and with those front ramps reduced, we are all excited to see how much better this mare may be in the roping pen. My friend pointed out, “imagine how amazing of a horse this already-amazing-mare will be with a good mouth!”

31/03/2024

25 year old mare with massive upper 6 hooks.

I’ve mentioned this before. Sometimes the fattest horse in the pasture will have the worst mouth. This old girl isn’t obese by any measure. She’s sway-backed from age but she’s not skinny! Typically a mouth such as this would belong to a horse with a much poorer body condition.

This wonderful mare spent most of her life as a “kids horse” and then a “grandkids horse”. With her acceptable body condition, nobody ever thought to look in her mouth and the grandkids had lost interest in horses years ago. She was the most pleasant horse to work on at this facility and I can guarantee she feels much better after her mouth was properly taken care of.

24/03/2024

Evaluating wolf tooth removal sites for proper healing is very important.

This case is actually more of a common occurrence than most would think. Whether I remove a wolf tooth, or whether someone else does, part of my routine evaluation is to check for proper healing of removed wolf teeth. Here we see an enlarged and inflamed area directly in front of the upper cheek teeth. Sometimes you can palpate these areas and a tiny drop of pus will show up. This horse is owned by an older veterinarian who was trained several decades ago. He likely removed these wolf teeth when the horse was castrated.

What about leaving these alone? If you’ve ever had a splinter in your finger and it festers, you’ll understand how this feels to a horse who carries a bit that may contact these areas. Almost always, these tiny abscesses will contain a piece of tooth that was broken at the time of removal, or slivers of bone. The decision was made to address these mounds of inflamed tissue.

After removal, the tissue dried a little, tiny shards of tooth could be seen in both of them. Thoroughness in dentistry is as vital in your horse’s mouth as it is to yours.

12/03/2024

This post may seem controversial and I debated as to whether or not I should post it. The controversy portion will lie in the comparison of dentistry taught in vet school versus dentistry taught in a traditional dental school. In the spirit of education, I felt it necessary to write a compare/contrast piece. The levels of equine dentistry education are not consistent enough across the board. Now, photos don’t tell the entire story, but they do say a lot in this case.

Photo #1 was an event hosted by the AAEP, veterinary medicine’s premier equine education and lobbying group. You can Google them to find more info about this group. This AAEP event gave a group of vet students an introduction to equine dentistry. Notice 3 horses in stocks and a person holding each horse’s head. This person is responsible for holding the heavily sedated head steady, and at a comfortable level for the horse AND practitioner. Holding heads is physically demanding and the “head holder” is in the strike zone if the horse stumbles forward or decides to strike out with front feet. No matter how strong the “head holder” is, they’ll never be strong enough to steady a heavy horse for long. This is not ideal, especially with young vet students learning “the proper way” to perform dentistry. In my opinion, every single vet student who is exposed to dentistry should be exposed to that topic under the most ideal circumstances and with the world’s best instruction. This is anything but ideal for our future equine veterinarians.

Photo #2 is a veterinarian giving a nerve block into the rear of the mouth. Nobody is holding the horse’s head but the horse’s head is steady and at a comfortable level. The veterinarian is sitting to accommodate the horse. If this horse stumbles forward, there is a suspension halter keeping it from completely leaving the work area. The veterinarian is sitting on a roller chair and can easily move if he feels he’s in danger. This photo is from a traditional dental school that teaches veterinarians AND non-veterinarians at every level from beginners to very advanced levels.

Photo #3 is from the same school as the second photo. The main instruction and the safety precautions (sedation) comes from veterinarians. If you’ll zoom on those photos, you’ll see not a single horse being held by a human. They are all being held by a suspension halter. There are a few non-vet dental schools who will have “head holders”, but the two best schools in the country both use a suspension halter.

Photo #4 shows the proper use of stocks for dentistry. These stocks are actually purchased with an optional DENTAL POLE to suspend the horse from. This pole that extends forward from the stocks allows the horse’s neck to be straight and in line with its body. The front door of the stocks protect the practitioner.

Now why can’t the AAEP demonstrate a more ideal situation for young veterinarians? The equipment is available to anyone who wishes to find a better setup. Our veterinary population is shrinking and I believe this is partly due to the overpriced and substandard education they are offered.

07/03/2024

Why use a CERTIFIED equine dental practitioner?

In order to get certified through the dental association, we are required to attend a recognized dental school. Not all dental schools are recognized by the association. During the schooling process, depending on the school, we are required to chart around 200 head of horses. This can be horses we work on at school, horses we see independently, or horses worked on during an internship. Upon completion of our schooling, we are then required to take a written exam as well as a practical exam, where our work is graded by multiple examiners. This exam isn’t easy and many don’t pass with the first attempt.

After becoming certified, we are required to attend 24 hours of dental classes every 24 months, though many of us attend courses every 12 months. This keeps us up-to-date with current research and gives us exposure to new techniques and equipment.

Another reason to use a CERTIFIED practitioner, as if the level of education wasn’t enough, is that many states require non-veterinarians to be certified to be legal. In 2019 Utah was added to the growing list of states requiring certification for legal work.

The school I attended takes around 2 years to complete, which might not seem like a lot. Most vet schools won’t offer more than a week, maybe two, of dental education and students might get to “float” a couple horses in that process. Equine dentistry is an elective course in vet school, so most students won’t even take that course. Veterinary medicine still has no written and absolute “standard of care” when it comes to equine dentistry. So, what is taught in vet school in Colorado, may be very different than what is taught in Utah, Washington, or Texas. The most talented veterinarians with equine dentistry will also attend a regular dental school and obtain a dental certification in addition to their vet license. Worldwide, these are the highest skilled and most educated in medicine AND equine dentistry.

A great question to ask your dental provider is if they are certified through the dental association. If they don’t offer a straight answer, or if they say NO, you might request that they finish their education before working on your horse.

While some of us might make dentistry look easy, there is so much education behind what we do. Very often, what we don’t know can cause damage. As a horse owner, you can trust that your certified practitioner has been held to the highest industry standard and will generally be the most skilled option out there for your horse!

03/03/2024

Dentistry is required of all sizes of horses.

Everyone will adopt their own methods based on their education, their equipment, and their own body shape and strength. Miniature ponies definitely require some adaptations. Maybe this won’t be for the experienced practitioners, but maybe there’s a new practitioner out there who can benefit from my ideas.

First, I raise the floor of my chute because I can only get so low. With the very tiny ponies, you may need to raise their heads higher than would be acceptable for a larger horse. You should let these little ones rest often. Close the speculum, rinse their mouth and let them lower their heads. I also built special panels that contain them on the sides and have butt-bars to help keep them forward. Often they will want to lean back, sometimes laying down. This makes it very difficult to work.

Next, I use a Worldwide 2000 series speculum on all sizes of horses. Instead of purchasing a pony speculum, you can turn the 2000 series speculum upside down and it won’t interfere with the eyes as much. With extra small heads, I will still roll up a towel and stick it between the head and the spec, right behind the eyes. You’ll want to make sure you can see the eyes the entire time you work. Allowing any piece of equipment to contact the eye during work may cause unnecessary trauma.

Lastly, make sure you have instruments that can reach the very rear teeth. The standard disk hand piece generally won’t reach the 10s and 11s. You’ll need something that is much lower profile to reach those. Often, in small mouths, the 11s need extra attention and it’s never acceptable to miss them just because you aren’t adequately equipped.

I enjoy these little horses. Making adaptations to my chute has greatly improved what can be done with them. I am pretty lucky that most of my owners of minis have really well behaved horses.

22/02/2024

Tongue size.

After an insane amount of discussion in a previous post, I caught so much flack from a rather disbelieving veterinary community. You see, these very educated veterinarians, who took an anatomy course their first year of vet school claimed that the first photo (also used in the previous post in question) was indeed a “normal tongue”. Only veterinarians argued with me. For the record, not a single non-vet dental practitioner contested what I said, but many of them shared that post to spread the knowledge.

I made the claim that I often see tongues that are too large. This changes how I see the mouth, how I work on the mouth, and what I will educate the horse owner about.

Here are 6 different horses with ages ranging from 4 years to 19 years, according to their owners. The first tongue has an S-curve in the middle. This tongue is too long to fit inside the oral cavity when the mouth is closed (hence the permanent S-curve). The rest of them lay flat in the oral cavity. All of these tongues are “at rest” meaning they are not moving.

For all of the nonbelievers about oversized tongues, I would encourage you to look closely at these photos. Again, this is not a discussion of the existence of an oversized equine tongue, but rather it is photographic proof of my claim.

I have never seen a large tongue in a mule or donkey. I don’t see them in ponies. I don’t see them in drafts. I don’t see them in juvenile horses. I do see them in mature saddle horses in my region, across all riding disciplines.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk!

18/02/2024

Unequal pressure, asymmetrical conformation, and sheer bad luck can all contribute to an unbalanced mouth. Freedom of movement, side-to-side and forward-and-back, is essential for a horse to maintain an optimal level of comfort.

Sometimes it is unclear whether which comes first, a dental problem or or the structural imbalance, but they almost always come together. By aligning the lower incisors, we allow this horse to have a greater freedom of lateral movement. With annual maintenance these teeth will begin to wear more evenly.

17/02/2024

As dental practitioners we are very focused on teeth; how they erupt, how they wear, and how long they’ll last. One thing that can be easily overlooked is the tongue.

Tongue abnormalities can come in various combinations. Too long, too fat, too long AND too fat. Some horses with large tongues will chew on the edges of the tongue. Others will let their tongue hang out of the mouth when resting. Most horses with large tongues will demonstrate discomfort with bulky bits and some won’t take a bit at all. Most horses with large tongues, from my observations, are middle-aged or older.

Take this tongue, for example. It is fat and long. In order to keep it inside his teeth, he has to kink it (you’ll notice the S-curve in the middle of the tongue). This tongue actually rested in the kinked position. I could not coax the tongue to lay straight. Notice the side views of this tongue where one side bulges out and the other side is recessed. For a comparison, I’ve included a normal tongue that lays straight in the mouth.

As a practitioner, it is my job to notice things like this and explain to the owners what I find. Bitting will likely be an issue for these horses and most owners will be understanding of this and try different options until they find something that suits this horse.

This tongue also limits how much tooth surface I can reduce. Closing the mouth any more than it already is will be uncomfortable. Incisor reductions must be kept to a minimum. With these mouths, I’ll make sure to address the edges where sharp points will be and I will lightly touch the chewing surface ONLY addressing the very high spots. Then I’ll spend a great deal of time fine-tuning things to maximize lateral movement.

A good dental education will teach that sometimes there are limiting factors to how much work can be done. A large and/or long tongue will definitely limit what I can do in this mouth.

11/02/2024

ETR (Excessive Transverse Ridging).

ETR is a malocclusion in the equine mouth. It is generally caused by inhibited rostral-caudal (forward-back) movement. I believe it can also be a genetically inherited trait that involves the formation of the tooth materials, as I have worked on offspring of certain stallions with ETR like their sire. In this case, the ETR is caused by offset cheek teeth. The lowers are back from the uppers, causing extreme ramps in the back. These ramps virtually stop natural rostral-caudal movement of the jaw and the remaining teeth form these excessive ridging.

When treating ETR such as this, it’s not possible to remove these high spots down to the lowest point. You’d have no tooth left. My preferred way to treat this is by reducing the highest points and the rounding each transition slightly so there are no defined lines that will catch with R-C movement. The improved movement of this jaw will wear back into a reduced version of what is seen here.

I am hoping this horse owner will bring this horse back within 6-8 months. He’s a young horse and if the owner is diligent, the problems in this mouth can be dramatically decreased. Then annual maintenance will be all he needs!

09/02/2024

This handsome 21-year old gelding is a prime example of lifelong dental work. This is also a tribute to an owner who notices if an eyelash is out of place and provides meticulous care to her horse.

This horse has a mandibular offset, meaning that the upper cheek teeth are set forward to the lower teeth. His teeth wear into ramps on the upper front and lower rear, BUT, you wouldn’t know that by looking at these photos. Also, the upper 9s are beginning to expire due to age. In most horses this begins around age 18. The expiration and wearing of those upper 9s has been slowed due to proper dental work. There is a slab fracture that has occurred on the 107, but it has been monitored and documented over the last 2 visits. The tooth is not mobile. There are no obvious drain tracts and the gum tissue looks very healthy and has filled in where the broken fragment used to be.

Without a lifelong dental program this horse would not have a mouth this healthy.

09/02/2024

Challenge to all equine dental practitioners. TAKE PHOTOS!

I woke up this morning feeling excited about life. As dental practitioners we are educated in a rare profession. We see aspects of equines that nobody else sees. We should openly share what we find and flood the world with equine dental education.

While it’s ok to share posts and content created by someone else, I want to encourage more practitioners to create their own content. So I’m going to give you some pointers:

DO-take good photos. You all have a cell phone in your hand at this very moment. Use it! Get yourself a good headlamp and develop your photography skills.

DO-share your photos on your platforms. Give a short description of what is being illustrated. If possible, show how the problem was corrected.

DO-make sure your photos are well-lit and focused. Don’t force your viewers into eye problems because your photos aren’t a viewable quality. Your phone has a zoom feature so there’s no reason to show speculum bite plates with a blurred, dark dental problem behind them.

DO-take photos of good mouths as well as bad ones. Talk about why they are good. Good conformation, good dental work, and good luck all play a role in a healthy mouth. Talk about those things!

DON’T-post photos of illegal things. If it’s illegal for you to extract teeth, don’t post extractions and claim that YOU did the work. Many states are watching your social media and are sending out citations for illegal activities. You can, however, post photos of a dental problem, post photos of an extraction that took place, and educate what happened WITHOUT claiming ownership of the work. Often it’s better to NOT claim ownership of the work being used to educate (but not always). If dentistry is illegal in your state, don’t claim any of the work you show and label it as “educational content only”. After all, it could have been your work in a legal state or it was from someone else that sent you photos!

DON’T-use your educational posts to throw named individuals under the bus. If you post about “bad dental work” don’t name people. Use broad descriptions of who might be responsible, such as, “uncertified practitioners” or “uneducated dentists” or broad descriptions of other licensed professionals that may be causing problems. Avoid using your educated posts to turn into a blame session. When you create content like this, word your content carefully.

DON’T-use your social media to broadcast where you’ll be working on a specific date ESPECIALLY if dentistry isn’t legal in your state. I prefer not to even broadcast at all where I’m working, but that’s my preference. Several states are taking notes of where “illegal” dentistry will happen. It’s no surprise when a state investigator shows up at that facility and starts asking questions!

I hope this helps. We truly need to flood the world with our dental knowledge. Good luck!