Although we know, without a doubt, that ALL dogs benefit from proactive and competent dental cleanings and evaluations, dogs who earn their keep utilizing their mouths as a most important tool can particularly benefit. It can be universally agreed upon that a painful or uncomfortable mouth can hinder an animal’s ability to pick up, grasp, and hold objects throughout their daily lives. Even subtle pain can affect the amount of pressure a dog uses to carry an object from the field back to its handler. So, let’s look at how oral pain in hunting dogs can affect them and how to help them get back to their optimal self again.
Types of Oral Pain in Hunting Dogs
A dog with one-sided oral pain will compensate by holding and chewing objects on the opposite side of the pain. This can cause excessive pressure to be focally placed on the object that they are carrying. Although this may not matter much when your dog is carrying its training dummies, it can have less than desirable effects when retrieving that hard-won pheasant or mallard. Bilateral oral pain can cause your gundog to hesitate when retrieving, carry prey with a “hard mouth,” potentially damaging prey, accidentally or purposefully drop retrieved items, or generally change their performance in a multitude of ways.
Results of Oral Pain in Hunting Dogs
We know that dogs experiencing oral pain typically underperform in athletic activities and competitions such as hunting and field trials, agility, working dog trials, and even conformation shows. Pain and the presence of infection within the mouth can cause a typically high-performing, high-scoring dog at the peak of its athletic abilities to underperform subtly or, in some instances, quite drastically. We all know that the difference between placing and simply competing in these events can be as thin as a razor’ edge, especially at the highest levels of competition.
Furthermore, without a comparison animal to notice a subtle decline in performance, handlers may not even recognize a difference in dogs hunting in the field rather than in school and judged competition. Even worse, the negative performance may be written off as aging changes, orthopedic problems, or metabolic problems like kidney, heart, or liver disease. Sometimes, extensive amounts of money can be spent on a workup to determine the cause of a dog’s generalized “slow down” without thinking of the impact of poor oral health on a dog’s overall well-being.
Given the close relationship between a dog’s teeth and its nasal passages, we can also often see a reduction in the quality of scent work. It is very common for tooth root infections, such as abscesses, to invade the nasal passages, greatly reducing a dog’s sense of smell and potentially causing nasal infections and/or inflammation, known as rhinitis. Please don’t forget about your scent hounds, tracking dogs, and detection of canines when considering canine oral health. It’s not just the upland game pointers, flushers, retrievers, and waterfowl-focused gun dogs that can suffer lackluster performance due to oral pathology.
We also know that the modern gundog, scent hound, herding, and working dog lives a double life as a cherished pet and family companion. So even if their performance at work is not negatively affected by oral pathology, their overall comfort and well-being certainly can suffer ill effects.
How a COHAT Can Help
Montana Pet Dentistry and Oral Surgery has the expertise, experience, and specialized equipment to provide your working canine partner with a thorough and complete oral evaluation and treatment. Dr. Guillory is a board-certified veterinary dentist and oral surgeon with years of experience treating working dogs. While here in our office for COHAT (Complete Oral Health Assessment and Treatment), your working companion will have a Cone Beam CT scan performed to provide the most sensitive and specific dental imaging technology possible to detect problems within their mouth.
You can rest assured that your dog’s mouth will be thoroughly examined, with all tooth surfaces cleaned and any pathology identified, noted, and discussed with you to determine the best possible treatment options to help get your canine partner performing optimally. Being a veterinary dentistry specialist means that Dr. Guillory has many treatment options for problem teeth, such as root canal therapy, vital pulp therapy, and odontoplasty. Therefore, a problem does not automatically equal extraction!
It is also good to be aware that young pups often have developmental issues affecting their ability to retrieve and perform as hunting dogs, such as malocclusions. Dr. Guillory is additionally equipped to handle these developmental abnormalities, which may have, at other times, held them back from becoming an optimal hunting partner.
Need Dental Care or Your Hunting Dog’s Oral Health?
So, if you’ve got a hunting dog, gundog, scent hound, tracking dog, or working dog of any type whose performance isn’t up to its usual standard or a young growing dog with developmental abnormalities, please reach out to schedule a dental consult at (406) 599-4789, email us at , follow us on Instagram @mtpetdentistry_oralsurgery, or visit our website at montanapetdentist.com.
Images used under creative commons license – commercial use (03/06/2025) Photo by Josiah Ness on Unsplash