CO The Management and Diseases of the Dog. 



The full-grown dog has usually twenty teeth in the upper 

 and twenty-two in the lower jaw, with two small - supernu- 

 merary molars. All of them, with the exception of the 

 tushes, are provided with a long neck covered by the gums, 

 and separating the body of the tooth from the root. The 

 projecting portion of the teeth is more or less pointed, and 

 disposed so as to tear and crush the food on which the dog 

 lives. They are of moderate size when compared with 

 those of other animals, and are subject to little loss of sub- 

 stance compared with the teeth of the horse. In most of 

 them, however, there is some alteration of form and sub- 

 stance, both in the incisors and the tushes ; but this de- 

 pends so much on the kind of food on which the animal 

 lives, and the consequent use of the teeth, that the indica- 

 tion of the age by the altered appearance of the mouth is 

 not to be depended upon after the animal is four or five 

 years old. The incisor teeth are six in number in each 

 jaw, and are placed opposite to each other. In the lower 

 jaw, the pincers, or central teeth, are the largest and the 

 strongest ; the middle teeth are somewhat less, and the 

 corner teeth the smallest and the weakest. In the upper 

 jaw, however, the corner teeth are much larger than the 

 middle ones ; they are farther apart from their neighbours, 

 and they terminate in a conical point, curved somewhat 

 inwards and backwards. 



As long as the teeth of the full-grown dog are whole, 

 and not injured by use, they have a healthy appearance, 

 and their colour is beautifully white. The surface of the 

 incisors presents, as in the ruminants, an interior and 

 cutting edge, and a hollow or depression within. This 

 edge or border is divided into three lobes, the largest and 

 most projecting forming the summit or point of the tooth. 

 The two lateral lobes have the appearance of notches cut 

 on either side of the principal lobe, and the union of the 

 three resembles Ha^fleur de lis, which, however, is in the 

 process of time effaced by the wearing out of the teeth. 

 (Figs. 6 and 7.) 



