Health & Medical

My retriever kept a baby tooth long after the adult one came in, a double row of fangs that looked comical in photos and was quietly wrong in his mouth. I nearly left it, assuming nature would sort it out the way it does with most puppies and most baby teeth. The vet removed it at the next visit, and explained that waiting would have crowded the jaw for life, which is not the kind of souvenir you want from a puppy who trusts you to notice.

Puppies lose their milk teeth around four months, and the adult set pushes through as the roots of the baby teeth shrink and release. Usually the old tooth falls first, helped by chewing and the pressure from below, which is why a good chew toy matters at that age. Sometimes it does not, and the new tooth erupts beside or behind it, a condition called a retained deciduous tooth that is more common than many owners realise, especially in small breeds with crowded mouths and little room to spare.

Why a lingering baby tooth is a problem

Two teeth in one socket crowd the jaw. The adult tooth gets pushed out of position, and the misalignment can last forever, trapping food and setting up gum disease early in a mouth that should have decades ahead of it. In small breeds especially, where the mouth is already tight, a retained tooth can rotate the bite and damage the opposing gum with every chew, a slow grind that hurts and that the dog cannot explain, only endure by eating less.

The canine teeth are the usual offenders, those long fangs that look dramatic when doubled and that catch the eye in a photograph at the park. But any baby tooth that lingers past about six months, with the adult version already present and coming through, should be looked at by someone who sees this weekly. The window is narrow; once the jaw sets and the bone closes around the wrong position, correction is harder and sometimes impossible without orthodontics that cost more than the puppy did.

At home you can flip the lip and count. A puppy should not have two obvious teeth where one belongs, and you should not see a permanent tooth sitting right next to its baby predecessor like an awkward guest who refused to leave. Redness or a little blood at the gum where a tooth is loosening is normal; a foul smell or swelling is not, and it points at infection rather than the ordinary shuffle of teething, which is messy but not offensive.

Do not wiggle a retained tooth yourself. Pulling a baby tooth with an unabsorbed root tears tissue and can damage the adult tooth beside it, trading a simple extraction for a complicated one. Leave the removal to the clinic, where an anaesthetic lets the vet see and extract cleanly, and where the dog feels nothing of the part that would otherwise be a struggle and a fright in your bathroom.

The fix is simple: under anaesthetic, the vet extracts the stubborn baby tooth, usually with the adult one left to settle into the now-free space, which it does remarkably quickly once the competition is gone. Recovery is quick, and most puppies are themselves within a day, rubbing their face on the rug as if nothing happened. Leaving it is the expensive option, paid in orthodontic trouble and dental disease down the line that you could have avoided with one short appointment and a little vigilance.

The lesson is that puppy teeth are not just cute. They are placeholders with a deadline, and a tooth that misses its cue needs a hand from a professional. A two-minute look each week during those months catches it while it is still an easy job, before the adult tooth commits to the wrong address and stays there for the rest of the dog's life, crooked and crowded and prone to trouble.

After the extraction, watch the mouth heal. The pup may be off his food for a day, which is normal, but a return to eating and playing soon after is the sign it went well. Keep chews soft for a short while so the site settles, then let him back to his toys. The adult tooth that was crowded will, in most cases, drift into a far better position once the rival is gone, and you will see the bite improve over the following weeks without doing a thing.

Prevention next time is mostly vigilance during the four-to-six-month window, when the swap happens. A weekly lip-flip costs nothing and catches the problem while the jaw is still malleable. If you are getting a puppy from a breed prone to retention, or a small breed with a tight mouth, mention it to the vet at the first puppy check so everyone is watching for the same thing as the teeth come through.

The wider point is that puppy mouths are not self-managing. We vaccinate, we worm, we socialise, and we forget the teeth, which is a shame because the foundation laid now shapes the dog's comfort for life. A few minutes a week in those months spares a grown dog the chronic dental trouble that starts with a baby tooth nobody noticed, and that is a bargain any owner can afford to take.