Dr. Shagam to the rescue again!

Wednesday morning there was some blood on the floor in BooBoo's den, and she didn't eat most of her meal from the night before. She wasn't limping or showing any other signs of pain, but then she finally opened her mouth just enough to let us see she had broken a lower canine.

A close-up of the broken tooth.

We put her on an antibiotic and started making plans to coordinate the vet staff and our dentist to do a root canal on Sunday. We started about 1:00 pm with darting her for the procedure. She was on the table around 1/2 hour later.

BooBoo under anesthesia and ready for work to begin.

She had broken the tooth off right at the gum line. As Dr. Shagam, our dentist was working on it he found she also had a slab fracture on the front half of the same tooth. He fixed that first and then continued with the root canal.

Dr. Shagam, left, at work in BooBoo's mouth.

While we had BooBoo down, we did a complete check-up and got blood for a work up. We had her down a little longer then expected, but by close to 4:00 we were putting her back in her den and giving her a reversal. She woke up well, and even ate her breakfast the next morning.

Great job by our dentist Dr. Shagam and by our Zoo staff veterinarians Dr. Paluch and Dr.'s Jonathan and Stassa Bergmann.

At right, BooBoo gets her check-up and blood pulled while she is still under anesthesia.

You could do a great job in your own way, and sponsor BooBoo. When you come down to visit, she might even smile and show you her nice, healthy teeth!

You you can also watch Dr. Shagam at work when he gave Bengali a root canal!