Horse Teeth

Today started with me sliding out of bed like a slug, oozing across the floor, and pumping tea into my system so that I could be out at the ranch. I knew I ought to be there.

My friend Cathy the Mad Horsewoman's older horse has been losing weight. It could be because he's an old dude, it could just be his time coming on, but I knew from watching him eat that he needed his teeth floated.

Horses' teeth grow unevenly, and they wear unevenly. Older horses' teeth sometimes wear SO unevenly that they can no longer chew their food well enough to digest it properly. I'd watched the old horse chew up a carrot and have half of it fall out because his teeth weren't grinding it up and holding it to swallow. He's such a good horse, too, a retired ranch horse who has an unusual horse mentality -- he's a workin' dawg, and even though he's old, he wants to show the world that he still knows exactly what to do.

My horse, Dink, the Stinky Dink if you want to be precise, was underweight his first winter we had him. He'd been a paddock horse and had no idea how to graze, but even when he figured out you have to eat all the oat grass, not just the tips, he was losing weight and becoming gaunt. A "horse person" suggested that we have his teeth floated. We did, and the little snothead got fat as a tick in no time.

"Floating" is a funny term. It means filing the horse's teeth down so that they can meet and chew and grind food. The vet drugs the shit out of the horse, uses a variety of methods to hold the horse's mouth open, and has at the teeth with something that can reduce the teeth to evenness. When Dink was done, dear old Doc Boero (God forgive him for suiciding) took a big-ass rasp to his teeth. Today, young blonde pretty Dr. Janeway (not making that up) used a long armed power sander to even the old horse's teeth.

I learned from reading the James Herriot books what floating teeth involved. But Cathy the Mad didn't know. So I went out to help her get through it. I'm glad I did. She was a bit freaked. We, when we think of dentistry, think of finesse and novocaine. Horses don't have nerves in their teeth, so the vet just thinks of "Get in there and saw off the high points." A bit unnerving.

It's done now, and I hope the old horse gets good and fat and fit and lasts another 10 years.