How well do you know your horse’s mouth? If your horse is in work, regular check-ups from the dentist will make for a happier horse, after all horses are not born to have a big lump of metal in their mouth. We quizzed David Sullivan about becoming a dentist and how we should best care for our fetlocked friends.
How does one become an equine dentist?
There’s lots of different courses that you can do in England and America but I went to Australia to do it. Anything from a short week course to a long 15-18 month course which is the one I did. It’s run by the Equine Dental Association of Australia, you’ve to spend a certain amount of time with around 10 different dentists and you have to do 240 practical days. You get to work on thousands of horses over the 15-18 months.
A prerequisite on the course in Australia is you must have previous horse experience - some level of horsemanship to be able to work around horses because they are all unsedated, which is another reason I did that course because in Ireland we work on unsedated horses and use manual tools, those are the boxes I wants to tick.
Signs you horse needs teeth checked:
What should we expect from the first visit?
A key part of the job is to give a confirmation report to the owner, what their teeth are like, if they have nice teeth if they are where they are supposed to be or things that they might need to keep an eye on like dominant teeth, missing teeth, developing over growths or developing hooks.
How often should my horse see the dentist?
The first time we see them is usually as yearlings. If they are going to sales, just as the prep starts, for a nutritional aspect for the yearling but also just to take the bit in their mouth a little more comfortably. After they’ve been broken in we usually see them again, that’s getting up close to two years. They’ve got 24 baby teeth which they will lose between the ages of two and four years old. We recommend doing younger horses under five more regularly because their teeth are softer and they sharpen up quicker. Once they get over five years their teeth start to slow down a little bit as they get older. If they are not really doing anything once a year is grand but more regularly if they are being ridden a lot, you want to keep their mouth as comfortable as possible.
What’s the deal with pesky wolf teeth?
They can have no wolf teeth or up to four wolf teeth, they sit just in front of the upper or lower molars and that’s where the bit sits. They can become mobile quite easily, if there’s any kind of movement they are usually pretty sensitive. It’s just a rule of thumb really that we take them out whenever we can if the horse’s been ridden. The wolf tooth doesn’t really have any purpose, it’s more of a prehistoric tooth it’s got no eating function, they won’t miss it for any eating purposes.
When is the gag used?
If I’m doing a young horse that’s never had its teeth done before I won’t use the gag, I’ll just use my hand to keep the mouth open, just because they are not used to a lot of pressure.
If they are ok to have the gag on, it’s just to keep the mouth open to make it easier for us. We don’t open it so wide that it puts any pressure on the mouth and we give them lots of breaks so the mouth is not wide open for too long to make it as stress free as possible.
To sedate or not to sedate?
The majority of the horses I do are unsedated. I think I’ve had two sedated since I’ve come back in April. The majority of them are fine to do unsedated, and that’s unbroken horses, yearlings or horses in work. There’s always going to be some horses that it would be safer to get them sedated and that’s when I might request with the owner to organise something with their vet. Dentists aren’t legally allowed to sedate horses, only a vet is allowed to administer sedation or prescribe Sedalin Gel.
You can find more information on David or equine dentistry you can check out his website at www.dsequinedental.com