Tooth Flotation

So today I went out to the San Juan house to watch Rosie get her teeth done. When I got there the vet was already there and we were ready to begin. We started out by giving her two sedatives. One to just make her sleepy and the other to lower her head and kill most of the pain. The vet strapped on the tools like shown in the picture, and began to crank her mouth open. She also had a strap that went under her neck and held her head up. She began drilling the teeth down. Horses teeth never stop growing like ours do, so when their teeth grow sometimes they create ridged ends that are really uncomfortable for the horse, especially if it is poking the insides of their mouth. So once she's done drilling she shoots the top of Rosie's mouth with Novocaine. Because there are no nerves for the wolf teeth you only need to numb the area around it. She then, pretty much just took pliers and yanked the two wolf teeth out. Wolf teeth are very poorly placed in the horses mouth and can cause irritation especially with the bit. And unlike the other teeth, wolf teeth are not rooted in, they are only held in by cartilage. But if they are not pulled around the age of 2-3 yrs they can become harder to remove. Once the two teeth were pulled Rosie was done for the day.

For the rest of the time spent there we played with Shea in the sprinklers and watched Sam and Tequila dance while I took pictures.