A woman was left stunned when she discovered that the Great Dane she adopted had 70 teeth.
Just two months of taking the pup in her house, Aurora Rutledge, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, was handed over a $770 (£609) veterinary bill.
Her one-year-old dog Loki was found to have 28 teeth more than what’s normal for a Great Dane when Aurora took him for a routine check-up.
The vets had to remove 21 teeth from the pooch’s mouth. However, the dog is doing great now and is recovering in Aurora’s home on soft food eatables.
“I had taken him to our local vet as a routine check up since he was a new rescue and mentioned to the doctor that the people we got him from mentioned that he may have retained baby teeth,” Aurora, who owns a bar, said.
“Loki is a giant puppy and is very energetic – so I hadn’t had a chance to look inside his mouth myself beforehand.
“When we did get a chance to have a little look we could see he had more than normal, but we didn’t think he’d have 70 teeth in there!
“The vet administered dental extraction onto Loki and removed 21 of his teeth, leaving him with 49 – which is still seven more than average. It was something that massively shocked us, but we’re just so glad that he is home and recovering now.”
The 31-year-old said her dog was suffering from hyperdontia and his condition was extremely severe.
“Hyperdontia is a genetic anomaly, but it is never usually seen to such an extreme as this,” she said.
“The vet cannot rule out that he may have this as a result of poor breeding – so the rescue we got him from is working hard to track down his breeder to hopefully stop something as painful as this happening again.
“The night of and morning after the procedure were rough – he bled all over my couches, rug, kitchen, dog bed, me.
“We had to give him a medication to make him sleepy, so he wouldn’t be up and around. Right now he’s still on soft food and transitioning him to more solid kibble slowly.
“After this, as far as dental goes, hopefully after all is healed, he will not even notice he had so many additional teeth!
“We will make sure he has his routine dental checks, especially since they did leave seven more teeth than average.”
Although Aurora had to pay an unexpectedly huge bill, the bar owner said nothing matters when it comes to a dog.
“Rescuing dogs is not always easy – you often run up giant vet bills, but the animals are so worth it,” she said. “Loki just snuggles in, and you know he feels safe, you can’t put a price on that.
“We wish bad breeding practices would be stopped. Until they are, adopting is the only way we will attain our dogs.”
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