I don't know whether I am just being unlucky or vets are being more picky than ever. In my breed, I would say about 60-70% of puppies have one of the big canines growing up into the roof of the mouth. I have been to see lots of litters over the years with friends in the breed and never have heard anyone worry about it. just make sure the bite is OK. I do not know whether this is an issue in other breeds. The tooth seems to make a path for itself and the puppy does not seem to be worried. I do like to keep a pup myself with good teeth but this does not seem to affect the percentage of these misaligned teeth as the jaw is growing rapidly. All the other teeth are fine.
A vet has horrified the owner and me by suggesting for a fee of £370 they put the puppy out and remove it. Never in all my years of puppies have  heard this. Anyone else have this problem and or what do you think. The owner is sensible and not planning to go with it and I always mention this problem with the teeth in my contract.

I'd have it removed because I know about the horrible infections retained teeth or misaligned teeth can cause.

I don't know the breed  or the size of the breed pool but am somewhat shocked the you say over the years this is not just a common but a generally accepted problem, why are your breeders not trying to do something about it - this is the sort of attitude that give people ammunition to throw at the breeders of pure bred dogs, and rightly so IMO. No one expect this sort of problem to be corrected in the short-term but at least it would be good to hear that breeder were attempting to make each generation better than the last so in time only those with good teeth are bred from.

And agree with the vet any tooth that is interfering with any other structure in the mouth should be removed but I can't comment on if the charge is reasonable or not or how urgent this particular pups problem is. Sometimes a first tooth can be wiggled loose and removed without a GA.

Yes the first tooth is usually wiggled out. The problem is if I breed from a bitch with good teeth then I cannot say what has happened to the first teeth with any dog or the line you use. It is not that the dog has not got a good mouth.

It is not that the dog has not got a good mouth.
Quote selected text

Was not suggesting Haxenaide that your bitch or even the stud had a bad mouth but if the breed as a whole worked on the problem it would improve, you need to know back several generations and if possible be able to check the progeny of popular studs. Most bitch owners will know what the background of their bitches is as in many cases they will have breed them. Try to get your breed club(s) involved it sorting this problem out.

Nova, whilst I totally agree with what you are saying,   I think it would be very difficult, or even impossible to find breeders who would admit to having this problem in their stud dogs as pups, once everyone in the breed agrees it's a problem ;-)    It might also be difficult for breeders to remember which dogs had ancestors without the problem, if it's just taken for granted in some lines.

Basically, the bitch owner is relying on total honesty and perfect recall, from the stud owner - and all the other breeders behind the stud dog.   That's a very tall order :-(

It's such a shame because it's so easy to 'breed in' a dental problem, but once acquired in the line, it's so difficult to breed out :-(

I do understand that I talk what would be ideal but I do think I talk what can be achieved, at the moment I am in a breed where the breeders who are members of the breed club do work together and do own up to any problem their dogs throw however I realise that any problems in a breed of large numbers it very difficult. However when I was in GSDs many years ago they were trying to improve the hip score in the breed and at first it seemed impossible with so many breeding outside the  club members but they tried and they did achieve an improvement.
One of the biggest problems to day is the relatively high cost of testing, in the days when you could do all tests for a small percentage of the cost of a pup it was not difficult to achieve a viable number of results of the progeny of your stock but now all testing is relatively more expensive and only those wishing to breed are able or indeed expected to have their dogs tested.

I think the biggest part of the problem here, is that once puppy teeth are lost, there's no evidence as to the location of the puppy teeth.

So unless a record is kept of all the pups in every litter, and how their puppy teeth developed prior to the secondary set, including jaw changes,  then breeding away from this is going to be hit and miss :-(

I agree, in theory it's feasible.   But in practise, it will take a lot of dedicated work for many years.  And with no guarantee of success.   The breeders will also have to be very careful that by only using dogs with desireable puppy teeth, that they don't unwittingly encourage another health problem further down the line.

And they also have to worry about breeding co-efficients now, which will likely look worse to the uninitiated as fewer dogs will be used to breed from and the genepool inevitably shrinks ;-)

Not saying they shouldn't try, simply that it is very much more difficult than it sounds :-)

Hazenaide,

Have a look here  http://www.vin.com/VINDBPub/SearchPB/Proceedings/PR05000/PR00047.htm

I have seen this method used successfully in a young puppy,  the mouth was correct and three of the canines were correct, just one misplaced inwards.   It may be effective enough to avoid surgery if the rest of the mouth is ok.

The article does say, though that it isn't always successful ;-)

It is, of course, a procedure that would need to be reported to the KC and permission to show applied for.

Are we talking retained or misplaced puppy teeth, but adult teeth being correctly placed, if so is there really a problem?  As the puppy teeth will be gone before they can impact on any jaw structure surely?

I know inverted canines are  big issue in Stafford's, but those are adult teeth.

I have never had any canines holding on, and mostly never notice them changing, but to my horror the boy we had in Quarantine had his baby canines in (5 months) when the new ones were coming through, looked like a baby shark. 

He had never had any chew toys as I worried about him being unattended with them, but straight away got him a bone with the ends sawn off and in a few days, by my next visit, the baby ones were gone.

As I understand it, the OP is talking about puppy teeth.   

This is what makes it so difficult to breed away from, by the time a stud dog is old enough to be considered as a potential mate, any evidence of misaligned canine/s is long gone :-(

I have only seen the method described in the article in relation to puppy teeth, not adult teeth.   Although the article refers to puppies of 6 months plus.

but my question is, if the mouth is right when the adult teeth come in, in the grand scheme of things is it really an issue?

Some vets seem to think so ;-)

Reading the article, the vet seems to be of the opinion that lingually misplaced canines are quite a common occurence in second teeth.    The fact that those pups in the breed who have one or both of their first canines misplaced inwards but not their second teeth, implies to me that perhaps the second teeth are misplacing the puppy teeth as they grow, and/or the top jaw is growing slightly quicker than the bottom.    IMHO this is not a jaw problem, but a temporary developmental problem.

I offered the info in the article as an alternative to very expensive surgery, if it works, the vet will learn something too  :-)     Surely no vet really wants to give a GA to a young puppy simply to remove a tooth that will likely fall out in the next couple of months ?

>Surely no vet really wants to give a GA to a young puppy simply to remove a tooth that will likely fall out in the next couple of months ?

If it's making a hole in the palate, then out is better than staying in, because of the high infection risk. Some deciduous canines don't fall out; we had one dog client aged 3 years who still have two retained deciduous canines, and a very bad mouth infection because of them.

Is it actually growing into the palate (can't see baby canines being that large), or is it just growing towards it.

The OP did say "growing up into the roof of the mouth".

At 3 years, it's understandable that a GA is needed to remove retained canines.   But in a young puppy,  surely there is still room for manouvre and there is no reason to expect the teeth to be retained. 

If the method described doesn't work,  then would be the time to reconsider?

As I say, it depends if the tooth is so misplaced that it's causing damage to the palate.

> The OP did say "growing up into the roof of the mouth".

I did wonder though if they actually meant towards as I have never found the baby teeth in my breed (medium size) long enough to do that.

Could it be that as the adult teeth are correct that all that is happening is as baby teeth loosen in this breed they are pushed inward by the new teeth, but will be pushed out before causing any palate damage and the vet is over egging the pudding in wanting to act.  They may simply not be very au fait with puppy development.

One of my Vizslas lost her lower deciduous canines & the adult teeth were clearly heading for the roof of the mouth.  I was a bit panicked as it looked like no insurance would cover remedial work so i thought they might have to be extracted - or I would have to pay for some sort of orthodontic work.  I came across an article which recommended having the dog play with a rubber ball of just the right size to help splay the teeth.

As luck would have it I had just such a ball & so started doing it (as well as pressing the teeth with my fingers).  Well, I didn't persist very long just because life got in the way.  And guess what - the teeth sorted themselves out before they reached the roof of the mouth and slid nicely into the grooves outside the jaw. 

So in my limited experience things CAN sort themselves out sometimes.    Mine are fed raw & like to tug so never had a problem with retained teeth.