The Teeth Have It

Lilly apparently spent the overnight hours breaking into the partially constructed new pig pens that adjoin her current paddock. And while she was able to get in, she was not able to get out when feed time came around this morning. He attentive anxiety over this fact made for some good portraiture.

In the 48 hours since Lilly had her teeth floated, her attitude has taken a complete 180. She had not at all been herself in recent months. Not visibly ill, not completely depressed--just not full of good cheer like Lilly normally is. She is a "talker" and is always nickering to you when you are outside but she has been pretty much silent for a long while now.

And while she did lose a bit of weight, not anything that would send off huge alarms because Lilly still looked like a tank (her weight loss consisted of losing that water-catching fat groove her back and only having it over her butt--probably nobody could tell but me!).

But Lilly was off, definitely off. And when you have a 15-year-old grey mare that had a weird reproductive spring, you start to get paranoid about the "C" word. She didn't exhibit any melanomas but I have been fretting about the possibility of uterine or ovarian cancer for several weeks now (but doing that ridiculous human thing where you don't find out more because you are too scared to ask).

So on Thursday, Dr. Ben Schroeder from Cedar County Veterinary Services came out and we had "dentist day" here on the farm. Lilly was first on my list--not because I thought she was in truly a bad way but simply from suspicion and, well, she is 15.

And oh my am I happy I did that.

Lilly's teeth were in dire need---we had a virtual dentist's "how to" course in problems. Hooks, sharp-edged molars, a weird chip on a front incisor. The fact she was still pretty fat is a testament to Lilly's metabolism which would do an Angus beef cow proud.

I knew getting her teeth done would increase her feed efficiency by a tenfold but I never expected the complete attitude difference. For the last two days, she is just so damn HAPPY. There is nothing like seeing your 15-year-old ex-broodmare galloping around the pasture, bucking and just having a lark. She is talking to me again--nickering nonstop all day--and you can just look at her face to see she feels great.

And the other probable good news is that Dr. Ben thinks that cancer is unlikely (he will be back after Thanksgiving to do an ultrasound). She doesn't exhibit many of the other signs to be expected and even if she does have a tumor, he wouldn't expect it to be malignant. HURRAY!