Reasons you may want to get dog dentures
While you may not be able to get prosthetic dentures for your dogs, implant companies make several arguments to get your dog tooth implants for missing teeth.
Of course, for dogs who depend on their teeth to do their job, like military dogs, implants may also keep them from early retirement. As Robert Johnson from the Wall Street Journal reports, US military dogs cost about $50,000 in training.
So it doesn’t make sense to retire dogs with broken or missing teeth. This would be a major waste of money. So metal implants are the answer in these cases—quite a different case from your grandmother’s old dentures.
How do dog tooth implants work?
If you’re looking for dog dentures for sale, you are likely fresh out of luck. but that doesn’t mean your dog can’t get fake teeth.
While dentures can be taken in and out, tooth implants are physically drilled into the jaw like another tooth.
The dental veterinarian, usually a specialist, puts your dog under a general anesthetic. They then slice the gum to get to the jawbone.
The vet will then drill a hole into the bone and implant a metal post. This will work in place of the tooth root. They may then wait for osseointegration, where the bone fuses with metal.
After this, there may be second surgery to put in an abutment, and possibly a third to attach the final fake tooth.
Why Navy SEAL Military dogs sometimes have titanium dental implants
One impressive fact is that military dogs who do a lot of biting often lose a tooth or two to breakage. When this happens, they often get titanium metal tooth implants instead. It’s a myth that all Navy Seal K-9s or other military dogs have metal teeth because the cost would simply be unrealistic.
However, if a working milittary dog in his prime loses a tooth, a metal one helps them to keep serving. You can see this video of Max the Belgian Malinois who had tooth cavities and had his teeth capped with titanium: