Dear Dr. Baum —
Hi! My 5 months old Great Pyrenees was play chewing my towel and his tooth just came off. It seems like a baby tooth but I’m not really sure if it is. He is my first large breed dog so I don’t really know how to treat him. He seems fine though; still eating, drinking, and playing around.
Daniel,
Los Angeles, CA
Dear Daniel —
It’s a baby (deciduous) tooth that has made way for the eruption of the permanent adult tooth. This process is called teething. Dogs start losing their baby teeth, starting with the incisor teeth (small teeth in the front of the mouth) at three and a half months of age. The canine, or fangs, fall out at about five to six months of age, followed by the premolars and molar teeth. The eruption of new teeth ends at ten to eleven months of age. The towel game merely facilitated the loss of a loose tooth.
Dr. B