Nearly Toothless Dog is Home.

He's on antibiotics and a pain patch for the weekend, but he seems to be feeling fine. The pain patch is morphine, so he's feeling REALLY fine - he naps for a while, then sits up and gives me this comically alert sort of drunky look. When we go outside he's really alert and concentrating on walking normally, like a drunk trying to pass for sober. He ate chicken and rice for dinner, very slowly and cautiously. I put his normal home-cooked diet in the blender with some chicken broth and turned it into something he can gum while his gums heal, and even though it was mush, he took his time licking at it carefully. Poor baby - with his dietary limits I can't even give him a treat like that ice cream meant for dogs! His face does look different to me, without the teeth his mouth looks pointier and more like an old dog, but of course with his fluffy facial hair it's not that noticeable to strangers. I'm just being a neurotic dog mom, worrying that he'll miss his former treats. Tomorrow morning will be sort of sad - our routine is that the dogs get a small breakfast of "real" food, then while I'm drinking my coffee and watching the news, they get a few of the very small, very low fat biscuits Murphy tolerated well. Sniff...no more of that.

I know I'm being silly, and I'm sure when he's all healed up he'll be fine and not notice the difference - then we get to do it again, to get the last 6 or 7 teeth out.

The office surgical tech, who is awesome, showed me the x-rays. I didn't need any explanation, the pictures said it all. Murphy's rear molars are really huge, with roots that go waaaay down and curve - and by waaaay down, I mean they are sitting right at the bottom of his teeny little jaw, right on his teeny little jawbone. I totally understand why the vet wasn't going to mess with it - giant teeth, tiny jaw, it would be entirely too easy to break the jaw trying to dislodge those huge molars.

The tech said that the specialist who does this stuff is only in town once a month, and it will be pricey (like today wasn't?), but we can put it off two or three months - he's here in the middle of the month and next week is way too soon to put him through this again, so it buys me a little time figure out where I'll find the money. It'll be fine. I just keep telling myself it will be fine.

My father always said that the paternal grandmother I don't remember, she died when I was two, always just said, "God will provide," and somehow, God always did. It will all work out just fine. The important thing is that Murphy came through the Dental Cleaning From Hell, and is his bright-eyed, chipper little self - extra bright eyed and chipper, thanks to the morphine patch!