October 21, 2015

White Dog sat behind Steve as he fed Ferguson his afternoon jerky treat and keep the white floofy "vultures" at bay. Fergus is a slow deliberate eater and the other chowhounds like to gulp down their treats and then stand REALLY close, looming over our quiet boy, in the hopes he will get rattled and drop a crumb.

Today he ignored them and calmly finished his treat but then extended his neck and made a strange noise. Steve was immediately on his knees next to his boy to make sure he was not choking or having swallowing issues. WD stood in the chair and warned the others to back off.

There was no further trauma. Ferguson simply bent his head down and spit out...a tooth.

"What the heck," Steve said as he handed me the big molar. "There is no blood in Ferg's mouth and the jerky is not that tough. He was not struggling to chew."  I looked and the tooth was clean and had only the tiniest pindrop of fresh blood from where it must have been connected to his gums. "Any tenderness," I asked Steve. He worked his way around the outside of Ferguson's jaw, top and bottom then slid a finger under his gums. He got no reaction of pain nor did his boy jerk away. And when he pulled his finger out of the mouth, there was no blood.

I still had a brief window before Dr. Julia's office closed. Even if she wasn't in, I wanted them to put the info into his chart. She was in surgery but I left message and asked her to call only if she felt it was something worrisome. Ferguson has terrible teeth and while this particular one had not been too savaged by life as a stray, there appeared to have only been a single thread of attachment to the jaw for some time. She did not call back but later emailed a not to worry unless we saw an infection or swelling note.

Steve held Ferguson's face in his hands. "What do you think, Buddy?" he asked him. "Should we save this and put it under your pillow tonight?" Zsofia immediately protested, "How come HE gets to hide away a midnight snack?"

White Dog just shook her head. "Tooth Fairy, Baby Girl. For the Tooth Fairy. You know, trades tooth for treat or money." That made the situation worse. "I want a tooth for under MY pillow," she sang. Ferguson just walked away, leaving the tooth in my hand.