Open wide, Wilbur: Conifer vet practice sinks its teeth into modern horse dentistry

Aspen Creek Large Animal Clinic & Equine Dentistry Service travels miles for horses’ smiles to care for animals and educate owners in the enigma that is a horse’s teeth.

The large-animal practice in Conifer consists of three vets, all women.

Ashleigh Olds has been practicing for seven years and opened the clinic practice three years ago. Olds and her associates, veterinarians Stephanie Hoke and Shannon Harland, have plunged headlong into the rough-and-tumble, traditionally male-dominated profession of equine care.

When it comes to a practice where the patients outweigh the practitioner by several hundred pounds, it’s important to find ways around sheer horsepower.

One demanding area of horse care is providing dental care, and the associates at Aspen Creek are using new, improved methods to get the job done that include sedation, power tools and a quiet presence.

“Men use muscle; women use finesse,” Olds said.

At this clinic, there’s no yelling and no roughing up the horses to get them to submit to any procedure, dental or otherwise. Horses frequently object to dental procedures.

“To truly do a thorough dental exam that’s safe and comfortable for both the horse and vet, sedation is the best,” Olds said.
Horses are awake enough to stand for the procedure. The medication reduces their anxiety and makes it safer for the practitioner performing the procedure.

Olds has to educate modern horse owners about new methods that include sedation, and what she hears frequently is, “My old vet didn’t have to sedate.”

Horses have two separate rows of teeth on each side of their mouths. The incisors are used to cut blades of grass or hay, and the rear molars are used to break down food. A small area between the incisors and molars is where a bridle’s bit rests and can consist of a small tooth that occasionally needs to be filed down.

Dreamer, a 12 year-old thoroughbred mare at the clinic, was a somewhat nervous patient who needed some basic dental work. After an injection in the neck, she was sedate and calm, and she received state-of-the-art care for sharp edges on her teeth, an ulcerated cheek and an uneven bite, a process that took about 20 minutes.

Vet assistant Celeste Cannon of Littleton expertly held the horse’s head during the procedure, providing a steady, calm presence.

Dreamer, quiet and comfortable, was given a dental exam and procedure while standing in a padded stock in the middle of the clinic’s clean, high-tech barn. While an adjustable dental speculum kept Dreamer’s mouth open, the vet did a visual and physical examination of the molars and incisors, which can involve the practitioner’s arm up to the elbow in the horse’s mouth.
Dreamer received a tooth grinding, called, “floating,” from both hand tools and power tools. Though a little louder, the new power tools are gentler and quicker.

Without sedation, Dreamer would have been antsy and fidgety, a bad combination for a 1,100-pound, powerhouse that could easily hurt a vet or an assistant.

More and more, owners are choosing sedation for their horses’ dental procedures in a practice that is 90 to 95 percent equines, and 20 percent of those cases involve high-end specialized horse dentistry.

“We are pretty well prepared to handle a wide range of cases, ” Olds said. “We do general care, vaccines and emergencies, because horses have an amazing capacity to hurt themselves.”

The vet office off Pleasant Park Road sits on 11 acres, with facilities that host five critical-care stalls and capacity for 12 additional horses. A closed-circuit TV system allows Internet access to monitor the horses in the recovery stalls.

The practice isn’t limited to just equine dentistry. It’s a full-service clinic with an in-house lab, computerized radiography known as digital X-rays, ultrasound equipment, video endoscope and a fully equipped surgery suite.

All the equipment still doesn’t prepare vets for everything they might find inside a horse’s mouth.

The oddest thing that Olds has seen in a horse’s mouth was a 5-inch rusty wire that was embedded in a horse’s tongue.
“I didn’t feel it or see it until I shined a light in there,” Olds said.

The owners told Olds that the horse had been head-shy, and after Olds removed the offending wire, the horse no longer had issues with people touching its head.

Olds, who always wanted to be a veterinarian, has also seen sticks stuck in the roof of the mouth, a cracked tooth turned sideways and the last tooth in a horse’s mouth so overgrown it had worked its way into the roof of the mouth.

“Unless you sedate a horse, you won’t find these things,” Olds said, “We never know what we’re going to see in there.”
Horses are living longer, and dental care is playing a role in their longevity. Olds said it is not unusual to see horses live into their 30s due to a combination of genetics, vet care, dental care and improved de-wormers. There are now feed options for senior horses that contain complete nutrition, and horses can now be fed healthy diets that don’t include hay.

Olds said she once had a 42-year-old horse at the clinic, but she couldn’t verify the horse’s age through records. She does see horses as old as 35 on a regular basis.

The clinic also sees llamas, alpacas, goats, sheep and some swine and cattle, and it is one of the few practices that will see potbelly pigs. The practice area is from Shawnee to Interstate 25 and Arvada to Sedalia, but by arrangement the vets pay calls to Fort Collins, Fairplay, Brighton and Bennett.

The clinic also offers chiropractic adjustments for horses, but Olds’ passion is the dental side of the practice.

“It’s almost like instant gratification to do dental work,” Olds said. “You can take a horse that’s in pain, and after treatment, they have a change in personality, and it’s like a different horse.”

To reach Barbara Ford, email barbara@evergreenco.com or call 303-350-1043.

Box:
Aspen Creek Large Animal Clinic & Equine Dentistry Services
23605 Oehlmann Park Road in Conifer
303-697-4864
http://www.aspencreeklac.com/
Exams, sedation, dentistry procedures, bit seats and charting range in price from $125 to $175 per horse. The trip charge is $55.

PS- I wanted to title this piece "Cavity Search" but the editors wouldn't go for it.