Lucky is one very playful Dalmatian who does not like any kind of veterinary examination. Whenever he was brought to our surgery we performed just a basic clinical examination. Any more then that was impossible to be done. Luckily for Lucky there was no need for further examination before.
Unfortunately, this time Lucky was brought to surgery because he was not behaving as usual: he was apathic, eating but not as well as before and he was drooling a lot.
Straight away we noticed a large swelling on his right cheek. As we expected, Lucky didn't allow any further examination. The swelling on Lucky's cheek was a typical for a tooth abscess so we decided to put Lucky for an antibiotic curse for a week. We didn't want to put Lucky through anaesthesia twice so decided to perform an x-ray examination next week, and if it was necessary, to remove the affected tooth straight away.
Despite antibiotic treatment the symptoms which Lucky had remained almost the same next week. Lucky was put through the anaesthetic procedure straight away.
During the induction of anaesthesia we spotted the foreign body stuck into his hard palate transversally, between his forth premolar teeth. It was obvious that this foreign body caused all the problems which Lucky had so we removed it immediately. It was a long piece of wood.
The hard palate after the foreign body was removed
The foreign body - a wooden stick
Lucky's problem was solved and all of his teeth were preserved. If some other dog had a same problem we would have removed the foreign body one week before. But Lucky is not a type of dog who would permit somebody to open his mouth. It cost him one week of carrying a wooden stick stuck into his hard palate.
Lucky under anaesthesia, the swelling on his cheek can be seen
