Just wanted you to know, I’m the dental care expert for AAEP this month. I’ll be answering horse owners’ questions on their website! What’s that, you say? AAEP? It’s the American Association of Equine Practitioners!
Other questions might be answered on this website here.
Did you know, there are plenty of images from Itika’s dentistry at the Auckland Zoo? They’re here. On the Blue Mist Equine Veterinary Centre portion of the website.
Check out the sites!
Take care out there!
Dr. Lizzi
It’s here, if the link stops working: https://aaep.org/ask-the-vet/dental-care-your-horse
So where are we now in equine veterinary dentistry in New Zealand?
Although New Zealand lags behind the northern hemisphere in terms of equine veterinary dental advances, with the efforts of a group of equine veterinarians with post-graduate education and certification in equine dentistry, we’re catching up… and bringing along many more veterinarians this year!
The education has always been available in the northern hemisphere, but now is readily available here and in Australia, to those veterinarians interested in improving their knowledge of current therapy in equine dentistry.Although in the past, some veterinarians have not been keen to perform equine dentistry, that seems to be changing fast.
Veterinarians already have extensive knowledge of oral and dental anatomy, physiology, pathology, diagnostics, treatment and pharmaceuticals.Veterinarians look at whole horse, not just the teeth, and are able to observe clinical signs within the oral cavity (mouth) or head which may indicate conditions requiring veterinary care in other parts of the body or organ systems, (eg: Cushing’s Disease).
Veterinarians can also offer tetanus prophylaxis, a very important part of dental, as well as of general veterinary, care as well.With their in-depth training, your equine veterinarian with current postgraduate training in equine dentistry is well placed to examine, diagnose, sedate and treat the dental conditions of your horse better than others in the field.
Some still believe sedation is unnecessary for good dentistry. I believe that sedation is necessary for a good examination. Sure, one can float a horse’s teeth without it, but exactly what are they treating? Do you want me to place a mirror into your horse’s mouth without sedation? 🙂 I used to think I did a pretty good job of dentistry without a full mouth speculum, a mirror, a good intraoral light and sedation.
The more I learned, however, the more I realised what I must’ve been missing. If you don’t look for oral disease, you won’t find any.It is all very well to feel what is going on in a horse’s mouth, but to get the full picture, one needs to see every tooth, probe them, and truly examine them. Use of a full mouth speculum, sedation, intra-oral light, and mirror on a fully-rinsed mouth allows your veterinarian to really evaluate your horse’s mouth for any pathology.
Stocks, (portable or stationary) allow the horse to be contained and offer stability to the sedated horse and provide a great method of stabilising the patient’s head. A horse standing quietly under short term sedation (ie, horse awake and fully ready to walk out of the stocks, for a routine dentistry, in less than half an hour), allowsthe best possible examination of your horse’s mouth, and also makes it as safe as possible for your horse, the handler and the veterinarian. This, to me, is the ultimate in horse, client, and veterinarian care.
Why I don’t call myself a ‘horse dentist’?
Throughout this site, you may note that I call myself an equine veterinarian with a particular interest in equine dentistry, rather than an “equine dentist”.
According to the Dental Council of New Zealand, The term ‘dentist’ is a registered title under the HPCA Act 2003.In order to legally use this title you would need to be a registered dentist, not someone who has taken a short course in “horse dentistry”, but a dentist:trained, examined and registered as a human dentist.
According to the DCNZ, one may use a title indicating an interest in dentistry (eg. a vet with a particular interest in pet or equine dentistry). SO, no matter how much training I receive, no matter how much “dentistry” I do, unless I go to a human school of dentistry, it would be unethical to term myself a “dentist” of any type! Sounds fair to me!
Your horse’s suboptimal performance or discomfort may be partly or totally due to mouth pain. If one doesn’t look closely, one won’t see oral problems!
Thorough veterinary oral examination plus appropriate treatment equals happy horse and happy owner….
We had a great time exhibiting at AAEP in San Antonio, Texas in November 2017!
Thank you so much to Dr. Lynn Caldwell for helping us out with prep and in the booth throughout the show,
and to son Elliot for coming along to assist manning the booth.
Matthew and I sure appreciated the help, especially when it got busy! Thanks to AAEP for putting on such a great program and a great show! I made it to as many lectures as I could, thanks so much, guys!
Thanks to those of you who dropped by to see us and stayed awhile! Loved your questions and have taken on board all comments!
We had some very small visitors…
And some bigger ones, but they were all very interested in the stocks! It was great to meet everyone! The view coming down the escalator was of our stocks, covered in fairy lights! Great idea, Lynn!
Sold quite a few books, with all the horsey people there! My writing is… slightly horsey… 🙂 (I write historical fiction as Lizzi Tremayne… post injury… and I liked it so much, I kept going!)
Elliot and I took advantage of the fact we could eat Mexican food again… and again… and again. Serious Mexican food is virtually nonexistent in NZ… I was so lucky Elliot, who spent the first half of the week alone with me, loves Tex-Mex as much as I do! Especially the little hole-in-the-walls where little to no English is spoken! Did we eat it all week in Texas, and on the rest of the trip? YES. Definitely.
We stayed at the glorious old Menger Hotel across from the Alamo and had a celebratory dinner after AAEP was finished. That’s Matt on the far right. And one of my sons, Elliot, with me beside the tree at the Menger. The lovely lady on the right, Sara, the manager at the Menger restaurant, helped us with bits and pieces for our booth. Thank you, Sara!
We took a celebratory drive with a new friend Shyann (on the left next to Matt), an accomplished young carriage driver for Lollipop Carriage Company, who LOVES her horses,
and had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner in Texas. That’s Elliot beside me.
Finally, we drove around… a LONG way around… showing the stocks and finally delivered them to their temporary home, en route to our new manufacturers. Thanks so much to Cliff and Lorie!!!
Looking forward to seeing you all next year at AAEP San Francisco 2018!
Our Equi-Still Portable Equine Stocks have received their compliance certificate from the National Association of Trailer Manufacturers (NATM) in the USA for 2018!
It was a long haul, but the stringent requirements of the NATM compliance program means our Equi-Still Portable Equine Stocks should be compliant for registration in all fifty states! They had their compliance examination just before AAEP opened in San Antonio!
Great job from our NZ engineer and manufacturer. Thanks so much, Jeff!
As we’re not currently members of the NATM, we’re no longer allowed to display their logo, but if you’re interested in what the NATM is all about, just click here to see their website.
We’ve found our manufacturer in the USA and they’re ready go get started! The stocks you may have seen at AAEP in San Antonio are currently with our new manufacturers to assist in their first build, then those stocks will be available for sale. They already manufacture the exquisite Tuffy Tilt Tables, so they can build our stocks.
Thanks to those of you who expressed interest at the San Antonio American Association of Equine Practitioners Convention last November! I’ve just sent an email to everyone on our collected list. If you didn’t receive an email,