Cat with upper canines look like they have been cut off?

I have a pet cat named Bonez. Found him as a stray about 3 years ago. I brought him to the veterinarian to neuter and declaw. I was told he was roughly a year old. He's a domestic long hair tabby, very sweet and even tempered, gets along with all cats. He has always had a drooling problem. Last weekend, my girlfriend pointed out that Bonez had no upper canine teeth. I found that odd and checked it out myself. Sure enough, he doesn't, but there are two stubs with flat ends, it almost looks as if they were intentionally removed. They are each perfectly flat and the same length.





I am just wondering if this is something that is a standard procedure that may have taken place before I found him. Why would he have no upper canines, tooth decay? I would find it hard to believe he would need his teeth removed in under a year old. Also, could this cause any of the excessive drooling, maybe because the mouth isn't catching the saliva? Or are the two likely unrelated? Thanks! Jeremy

Cat with upper canines look like they have been cut off?
Hi Jeremy.





Ask your DVM to check the rest of his teeth for cervical neck lesions/cervical line lesions. (The 'experts' get together and change the name of this problem every month or so, lol. The currently 'in vogue' name is FORLs....feline oral resorptive lesions.) A telltale sign you *might* be able to see yourself is if there is a piece of gum tissue growing down over the outer surface of a tooth.





It's a weird, special type of cavity that some cats get (no one has yet figured out why some cats get them and some don't...or why other species don't seem to get them.) They develop just under the gumline, at the 'neck' of the tooth....and often cause the affected tooth to break off at that eroded point.





If that's what's going on with your cat, he might need other teeth either repaired or extracted....as it is enormously painful to them.


If that's not what it is, your DVM should be able to shed some light as to what happened to his canine teeth. He might also have a condition called feline lymphacytic/plasmacytic stomatitis.


Please consider having him restested for FeLV/FIV regardless....as cats positive for those viruses have a much higher incidence of severe gingivitis, etc. than the general cat population. If he's positive, you need to know about it now. (Let's hope he's not, however....but the test will tell you one way or the other.) Any of these problems can cause increased drooling.





Please give Bonez a nice belly rub for me. :-)











Btw, no properly-educated DVM would ever 'cut down' a broken canine tooth!!! Doing so would still leave the pulp cavity open to infection (not to mention PAIN!) The only way to prevent that is to either do a root canal ($$$) or extract the tooth completely. If just the tip is broken off, but the pulp of the tooth is not exposed, it's left as it.....NEVER 'cut down.' That would only OPEN the pulp to infection.
Reply:Ask your vet
Reply:my cat drools all the time, hes like a dog, it might be because of the teeth or hes just a silly little kitty...





now about the teeth, my cat was also hit by a car and one of his canines was broken so they "cut" it down. vets do that so the tooth doesn't break anymore or get infected and stuff. the vet probably did that to his teeth for some reason like that, or like you said tooth decay made them bad and he cut them down so he wouldn't loose any more, or for some odd reason who ever had him before might have been cruel and tryed to defang him and dewclaw him, does he have claws? are they all OK? they might have just cut the claws. i don't know why people do that, cats cant hurt a person like a dog, but some people are cruel. next time he goes to the vet bring up his teeth and have him check his claws to make sure they are OK also.
Reply:Kitty needs to read your post better.





I have never heard of someone trying to grind down the canines for no known reason. He seems too young to have any real reason. Although, he may have had a habit of chewing on things which round down those canines. I don't think this is the cause of the drooling. Is there an overbite or an underbite? My dog has an overbite and drools quite a bit. Also, mouth and throat tumors can cause drooling.





As far as a cat doing less damage to a person. So not true. A cats bite can lead to loss of a finger or even a hand within days. If ever bitten by a cat, causing a puncture wound and bleeding, see a doctor immediately! Antibiotics are needed. I have seen first hand the dangers from this and have heard of people being hospitalized for days to weeks for cat bits! They are very serious! Please take caution! And I'm sure that's not why the canines are ground down.





Good luck!
Reply:My mom's kitty got hit by my older brother and broke her canines out, and one of my kitties has one of hers broken, but I don't talk to my brother and he hasn't been around so I am not sure what caused hers to break off...and she drools a lot.



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