Immediately she noticed some mild pain causing Sugar to be off on her hind end. She is tucking her hind end in to far, not standing sqare and having a little difficulty carrying weight and some pain on her whithers.
Dee suspects that giving birth has gotten her hind end out of adjustment and then she thinks perhaps the person riding her was using an ill fitting saddle causing the pain in her whithers. After adjustments to aleviate those, she is still a little off in her back end. Her feet have been trimmed well (barefoot), so the next piece of the puzzle is her dentistry.
Her first and last dentistry was done in August of 2008 and she should have been re-done in August of 2009, but being our busiest dentistry month of the year, I didn't get to our own horses... Kind of like the mechanics own cars...
The picture below shows what her molars looked like after all of these months. They really are quite good and just need a few minor adjustment, the sharp enamel points reduced and the front of her number 6 molars slightly rounded (or what some call a bit-seat). This took only about 15 minutes.
Her incisors are another story. All of her permanent teeth are finally in, but they have erupted unevenly and she has what's called a diagonal - you can see the teeth on the bottom right side stick up further than the other lower teeth. This diagonal causes her mouth to open too soon when her teeth move laterally (right to left) while chewing or will cause her teeth to be off center (look at the teeth in the middle) causing her issues when she is being asked to tuck her head and get collected while riding or working - this could also cause her to be slightly off balance under saddle. Additionally her lower teeth are protruding further than her uppers creating an under-bite that can also restrict her movement.
In the picture below you will see the incisors after I have made the needed corrections. Those corrections included: reducing the teeth that were too high - correcting the diagonal, correcting the table angle (chewing surface) of the teeth since the lower teeth had a rim on the edge causing a slight under-bite or the lower teeth sticking out slightly further than the uppers, the minor chipping was removed and you can see that the teeth are now center properly. These correction took about 10 minutes and she was done.
Now that the diagonal and other mal-occlusions of her incisors and molar arcades have been corrected this will take any pressure caused by the teeth being unbalanced off the TMJ area and that should be reflected through her spine and carried right down to her feet. Dee should see a difference in how she carries herself under bit immediately and she may even see some slight changes that may need to be made in her hoof trim now that her mouth is in balance.
This is what I refer to as dentistry for balance body movement. A float will just take the sharp points of the edges of the molars - that is why it is inexpensive. But you can tell from looking this horse in the mouth that without having her incisors corrected, the imbalance would just get worse over time, cause more pressure on one TMJ than the other and she will continue to carry her body off balance to compensate for the pain her out of balance teeth were causing.
If you have any questions about dentistry for balance body movement you can email me at christine@WhyFloatTeeth.com and I will be glad to answer any questions.
One final note - other then working on their own personal horses (such as Sugar) equine dental technician's (non-veterinary equine dentists) need to be supervised by a veterinarian on-site during the dentistry in the state of California. If you have a tech do the dentistry without a vet on-site and something happens, there is no insurance that covers your horse for any mishaps because that person - even if they are an RVT - is practicing illegally in California. It is simply not worth the risk.
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