Welcome to the office of Anson Tsugawa, one of the 100-plus certified veterinary dentists around the world whose daily routine ranges from cleaning to capping canine teeth, root canals to reconstructing jaws.
LOS ANGELES — It's another day in the dentist's office. Instruments are whirring and metal braces are being affixed onto shiny white teeth.
Except the patient is a German Shepherd.
Welcome to the office of Anson Tsugawa, one of the 100-plus certified veterinary dentists around the world whose daily routine ranges from cleaning to capping canine teeth, root canals to reconstructing jaws.
The field is growing but little known. Although the first suggestion to pet owners of options such as root canals, bridges or braces is usually met with raised eyebrows, some animal lovers are increasingly embracing procedures that are taken for granted when performed on humans.
"A lot of my friends say, "Wow, do you really do that for dogs?" said Tsugawa, 33, who recently outfitted an English bulldog named Coconutt with a gleaming gold crown on her lower canine tooth.
Tsugawa uses the same dental lab as the popular TV show "Extreme Makeover" and uses dental instruments designed for humans. He even opts for strawberry-flavored dental paste for his patients -- though he admits they probably don't care.
Today, the specialist leans over Anderl, a year-old, 84-pound dog whose two powerful but misaligned lower canine teeth have been boring holes in the roof of his mouth.
Tsugawa carefully squirts adhesive and places tiny stainless-steel braces onto two top teeth, connecting them with an orange rubber band. As the braces slowly move the top teeth into place, an acrylic bite guard affixed to Anderl's upper canines will guide the lower teeth into the correct position.
Anderl's owner, Katja Auer, had a number of options -- extract the teeth, file them down and cap them, or the work that Tsugawa is now performing that he does a handful of times each year.
"Everybody said, 'You are crazy! No one does this -- this is unheard of,"' laughed Auer, an equine masseuse who will pay $2,000 for the procedure.
Anderl's braces are a reflection of the evolving attitudes regarding pet ownership. Spending on pets is expected to reach $38.4 billion in the U.S. this year, with about a tenth going to veterinary care, representing an 8 percent rise over 2005.
Today, a growing number of owners aren't batting an eye as they agree to medical procedures to improve their pet's quality of life that would have been unthinkable even a decade earlier.
Veterinarians stress that animals are not put under the knife unnecessarily and all surgeries have a medical benefit, whether removing a flap of skin in a Shar-Pei's wrinkly face to eliminate the likelihood of fungal disease or reconstructing a jaw ravaged by cancer.
In Lake Forest, California, an exotic animal veterinarian recently created a fiberglass shell for a turtle hit by a rototiller. Other veterinarians have tucked up female dogs' teats to eliminate dragging on the ground after pregnancy, or opened nasal passages in Persian cats to enhance breathing.
WIMPY POODLE AS LITTLE WOLF
Dr. Tony Woodward of Colorado Springs calls dentistry the largest growth area in veterinary medicine.
"Really what we're about is pain -- finding the painful things that most people miss," Woodward explained, estimating that care goes undelivered in 95 percent of all dental problems in pets due to pet owner ignorance and general veterinarians untrained in dental issues.
"Cats and dogs don't complain -- they don't say a word," Woodward said. "Even the wimpiest little poodle has a little of the wolf in him that he doesn't want to show pain. It makes me sad to think of it."
While veterinarians welcome the growing recognition that animals should not be exempt from quality-of-life benefits of medical surgery, they point to a few isolated cases in which pet owners are over-eager to nip and tuck their furry friends.
Orange County-based veterinarian Bernardine Cruz said she heard of a colleague being asked to perform liposuction on a dog. The vet refused. Tsugawa recently declined a request to replace a tiny incisor on a Chihuahua that worked in the movies because the procedure was unnecessary and involved risk.
"Our pets are not a fashion accessory," said Cruz. "It's a little life."
The day after Anderl's procedure, the dog was running around in circles, dragging his bed around and generally behaving like his happy-go-lucky, bouncy self, owner Auer said.
"It's not something that is well-known," Auer said of the dental procedure she chose. "Maybe more dog owners should look in to their animals' mouths and make sure the teeth are ok."
Source: Reuters
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