Redemption for the Poop Eater

For months now, Kimball's breath has been horrific. At first we branded her a "poop-eater"... we'd seen her snarf up little deer nodules in the backyard, goose turds at Low Plain, etc. so it wasn't an entirely unfounded accusation. The problem is goose and deer, both herbivores, don't even have particularly stinky droppings. Was she finding some cat poops in the yard? I remembered TarDog, our big black lab when I was growing up, loved to eat "spicy ground meats" as we called them, left by the cats in the backyard. That always made her breath really foul. But only for a few hours. Kimball's was constant. We gave her every kind of breath-freshning chewie you can find at the pet store, and even started scrubbing her teeth with a special doggie toothbrush (which by the way comes with *gag* beef-flavored toothpaste, so I couldnt imagine how it was going to improve her breath. It didn't.)

Next theory was that at around 6 months of age, maybe she was losing baby teeth. I'd read online that puppy's mouths can become a bit sour when they are getting adult teeth. "A bit sour" did not begin to describe our cute little pup's breath, but maybe.... that theory was abandoned by her 7 month birthday, when her adult teeth should all have been solidly in place. I began to suspect a gastrointestinal issue- I mean, she has been diagnosed with Giardia and Coccidia before, and those can be terribly hard to get rid of. Maybe parasite activity was wreaking havoc on her GI system, causing chronic halitosis?

Poor Kimball, recovering

Wrong, wrong, all wrong. Finally, while dutifully brushing Kimball's teeth one night, Andy discovered that one of her teeth was turning brown at the base. A trip to the vet confirmed that Kimball had at least one rotten adult tooth. "Hmm... I have never seen this before in a dog this young..." was the vet's comment. Great. Anyway, poor DimbleDog was put on antibiotics immediately (which in less than 24 hours, completely cleared up the bad breath) and then went under anaesthesia to have the tooth extracted. After the procedure, the vets gave us her tooth (now in 4 pieces) in a little bag- apparently it was deformed wtih an abnormally long root, which probably contributed to it's "going bad" soon after coming in. Hopefully, the rest of her teeth will fare better. We are just so happy to be able to enjoy puppy kisses again!