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Archived Message

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
by Dennis

Tiffany is 10 mns. old and a new addition to our family. We had her checked at the Vet yesterday and he found that she has two full sets of teeth. Apparently she never lost any of her baby teeth and her permanent ones came in right behind the baby ones. They are all in perfect alignment. She's so small (3lbs) that it's not noticable unless you really look. The teeth have to be removed to prevent decay and infection. I was wondering if this is something that is common in this breed or if it had something to do with her size?

DISCUSSION:

My Nitro is 10 months old and 3 lbs also. Nitro also had two rows of teeth (I called him shark mouth). At 6 months he had to have 21 of his baby teeth pulled. The vet said that was a record for her. The previous record for her for a maltese was 17. The vet was kind enough to let me watch the procedure. Nitro pulled thru just fine and was eating dry food the very next day.
-Sharryl

hi,I have two Maltese. One weighs 4 lbs and one weighs 3 lbs. One is 2 yrs and the other is a little over 1 yr.have no idea if it is inherent within the Maltese or has to do with size but both my little ones also had not lost any baby teeth and they both had to have them all extracted. One of mine had them on the roof of her mouth so it is not very comfortable with any extra teeth that don't belong there.Good luck.Pat
-Pat

Buffy did the same thing. She could really bite. After xrays, my vet opted to wait a little while before pulling them. He said to let her chew on carrots and Iams bisquits, and sure enough they began comming out. She would lose a couple at a time. She now has lost most of them by herself, and her teeth are aligned perfectly. I think it depends on the placement and how strong the baby teeth are anchored whether they pull them or not. It seems to be common in Maltese from what I have read.
-Marsha A.