Don’t Whine Equine

02/11/2026

Benny says good morning everyone! Don’t forget to schedule your horse’s dental exam today!

But first here’s some facts !

Horses can sleep standing up🐴
Horses have a “stay-apparatus” which is a system of tendons and ligaments that allows the horse to lock their legs in position so they can relax without falling over. When not sleeping, horses also use this apparatus to rest while standing for long periods of time. This allows them to conserve energy while standing so they are ready to take flight if needed. It is a myth that horses never lay down – they do spend a short amount of time each day laying down for deeper sleep. On average, horses sleep two and a half hours per day.

Equine Dental Services Include:

Routine dental exams & floating

Correction of sharp enamel points, hooks, and imbalances

Support for improved feed efficiency and digestion

Improved bit comfort and acceptance

Patient-focused handling with horse comfort as the priority

Regular dental care helps prevent pain, reduces behavioral issues, and supports long-term health and performance.

📅 Appointments available starting February
📞 Call or text 580-969-0924

02/09/2026

🐴Teeth facts🪥

🦷Your horse has between 36 and 44 permanent teeth. If he’s a gelding or stallion, he has 44 permanent teeth, while your mare has 36 to 40.
His front teeth, called incisors, are designed to shear off grass and other forage. Your horse has six upper and six lower incisors.
His back teeth, called molars, are designed to grind food into a digestible form. Your horse has 12 upper and 12 lower molars.
🦷Your gelding or stallion has two upper and two lower canine teeth, which are remnants of “fighting teeth” once used by his ancestors for protecting the herd. These teeth sit in the gap between his incisors and molars, known as the bars of the mouth. Rarely will mares have canine teeth.
🦷Most geldings and stallions, and some mares, have two small upper wolf teeth, rem- nants of molars that no longer serve a useful function. These small teeth sit just in front of the molars on the upper haw. Rarely will wolf teeth be present in the lower jaw.
🦷Because your horse uses his molars to grind food, these teeth continue to erupt from his gums throughout his lifetime. This helps to ensure that he has plenty of grinding ability as he matures. However, because of this continuous growth, minor misalignments are likely to become more and more pronounced with time, which is why a properly balanced mouth is so important for maintaining good health in a horse’s older years.
🦷Your horse’s incisors also continue to erupt throughout his lifetime. In a natural grazing environment they’ll be worn down as they’re used to tear grass and other forage. However, a stall-kept horse won’t use his incisors in this fashion, which can result in overgrowth. If your horse’s incisors become too long, they’ll actually prevent his molars from contacting one another, compromising his ability to chew effectively.
🦷Just like you, your horse has two sets of teeth throughout his lifetime. His deciduous or “baby” teeth (called caps) should all be pushed out and replaced by permanent teeth by about 5 years of age.

02/08/2026

02/07/2026

🦷Some teeth information for everyone!🦷

🪥Wolf Teeth
About a third of horses have wolf teeth that erupt just in front of the cheek teeth between 1 and 8 years of age. They serve no purpose and are a remnant of the first pre-molar tooth that is no longer required. About 50% of horses need to have it removed as it interferes with the bit. This is easily done under light sedation.

The vast majority of routine dental care is to address this issue of enamel overgrowths, which develop into sharp points (below left) or enamel transverse ridges (ETR below right).

If left untreated the commonest signs of enamel overgrowths are:
Quidding - dropping food.
Balling – food pouches in the cheeks like a hamster
Inappetence - reluctance to eat
Tossing of the head or biting discomfort.
Smaller enamel overgrowths can be easily removed with a hand rasp or ‘float’. A gag must be placed in your horse’s mouth to safely and properly inspect and rasp the teeth. About 1 in 20 horses find this frightening and require light sedation. The way to avoid this is to have your horse checked each year from two years old so that they are used to having a ‘Gag’ put into their mouth. Most horses do not need any actual rasping until they are 4- or 5-year-olds when they have all their adult cheek teeth in place.
Some horses will need these enamel overgrowths removed twice yearly. More severe overgrowths – hooks and ramps (see below) - do occur and are often caused by malformation of the teeth such that they do not have an opposing tooth to wear against.
Hooks and ramps require motorised burrs to remove these large areas of diamond-hard enamel. They commonly recur at the same rate that the tooth is erupting, i.e., 2-3 mm per year, and so require treatment every year or so

02/06/2026

Don’t Whine Equine – Professional Equine Dentistry

My name is Jessica, and horses have been a part of my life for over 20 years. As a lifelong owner and rider, I’ve always believed that good horsemanship starts with proper care — not just riding, but truly understanding what horses need to stay comfortable, healthy, and willing.

Like many owners, I didn’t always realize how critical routine dental care is. I learned firsthand that equine teeth should be evaluated and maintained every six months to prevent pain, weight loss, behavioral issues, and performance challenges. Once I understood the impact, I committed myself to learning equine dentistry thoroughly — studying the techniques, anatomy, and best practices needed to do the job correctly and humanely.

I’m proud to offer professional equine dental services to help other horse owners give their horses the same level of care I expect for my own. My approach is calm, patient, and focused on the comfort of the horse — because a comfortable horse is a happier, better-performing horse.

📍 Based in Boswell, Oklahoma
🚗 Serving all of Oklahoma and Texas (willing to travel 3+ hours in any direction)

02/05/2026

Let’s check out some teeth today! You never know what maybe lodged in your horses mouth!

Why Would a Horse Need Their Teeth Floated?

🏇🏾Evolution of Horse Teeth🏇🏾

🐴In the wild, horses gain most of their nutrition through grazing on rough, fibrous material such as grass and brush. They use their incisors to clip the blades and then their tongue moves the food to the back of the mouth, where the molars break down the tough strands using a grinding motion.

😱Horse teeth have evolved to help facilitate the chewing and grinding of these tough forages. The continuous eruption of the tooth’s crown allows them to continue to chew even as the tooth slowly wears away during the process of grinding and chewing their food.

🪥In domesticated horses, grain and other extruded feeds (cooked with pressure and moist heat to better retain nutrients) make up a large portion of a horse’s calorie intake. Hay and some grasses are also less tough to chew than some of the forages eaten by horses in the wild.

🦷The crown of the horse’s tooth is extremely important to grind food sufficiently for proper digestion.
Domesticated horse diets can result in less wearing of their teeth, which can sometimes lead to inconsistencies in how the teeth wear down while they continue to erupt.

😳Additionally, horses’ top and bottom jaws don’t overlap perfectly. This misalignment also causes their teeth to wear unevenly, with sharp points forming on outside edges of the top teeth and the inside edges of the bottom teeth.

😬When tooth ridges form, it limits the horse’s ability to grind their food properly and can even damage the soft structures of the mouth such as the cheeks and tongue. Correcting these misalignments with an equine dental float is critically important to a horse’s overall health.

So please give us a call to schedule your horses dental exam today!!

Equine Dental Services Include:

Routine dental exams & floating

Correction of sharp enamel points, hooks, and imbalances

Support for improved feed efficiency and digestion

Improved bit comfort and acceptance

Patient-focused handling with horse comfort as the priority

Regular dental care helps prevent pain, reduces behavioral issues, and supports long-term health and performance.

📅 Appointments available starting February
📞 Call or text 580-969-0924

02/02/2026

DON’T WHINE EQUINE
Professional Equine Dentistry

Healthy Teeth. Happier Horses. Better Performance.

✔ Routine Dental Exams & Floating
✔ Correction of Sharp Points & Hooks
✔ Improved Feed Efficiency
✔ Better Bit Comfort & Acceptance
✔ Calm, Patient-Focused Care

📍 Based in Boswell, OK
🚗 Serving Oklahoma & Texas (3+ hr travel available)
📅 Appointments Starting February
📞 580-969-0924

02/01/2026

Some things you may not have known🤨❔❓

What is EOTRH Syndrome?😳

🙋🏼‍♀️Equine Odontoclastic Tooth Resorption and Hypercementosis, also known as EOTRH, is a syndrome in horses that results in resorptive lesions of the incisors and sometimes canine teeth.

🦷 It is usually gradual in onset, though often isn’t diagnosed until quite extensive lesions are present. Most commonly it is a condition of older horses (15+), though we have seen it in horses as young as 13.

While this syndrome has probably existed for many years, it has only recently been properly identified and named. Diagnosis is typically made through radiographs of the incisors. This is the only way to know definitively how many teeth are affected, and how severe the lesions are.

Dentist currently do not know the underlying cause for the syndrome. Because of this, there is no known treatment at this time to help prevent this from happening. The treatment for affected teeth is extraction based on staging of lesions present radiographically.

Why is this important?🙀✋🏻🤔

As the disease progresses, the roots of the incisors (and sometimes canines) start to resorb, or basically dissolve. This is an inflammatory process. Some horses also develop hypercementosis, which is an excessive buildup of cementum (calcified tissue) on the roots of one or more teeth. This process can give the appearance of bulb-like swellings around the roots of the affected teeth.

Unfortunately, as the disease progresses affected teeth eventually start to loosen and become painful. As further resorption occurs, some horses may even fracture off weakened teeth. Many of these teeth become infected as well, as the roots continue to degrade. This can sometimes present with small red “dots” visible above the gum line of the incisors, or even small pimple-like draining tracts in this same area.

Many older horses are fairly stoic, and don’t always exhibit obvious outward signs of oral pain until the clinical disease is quite progressed. As severe changes occur, these horses can start to lose weight. Some horses will start to refuse biting down on treats or carrots, and some will quit grazing due to pain in their incisors.

As the disease becomes advanced, some horses may exhibit irritable behaviors when being bridled or ridden. Our goal is to avoid this from happening. In our experience, horses that are diagnosed and treated earlier on will have more positive outcomes (avoid pain and loss of weight).

It is also interesting to note that many horses bounce back tenfold after extraction of these teeth, even those that end up having all of their incisors extracted at once. Where their owner didn’t realize there was a painful component to their disease, the horses become much more bright, happy, and personable after the extractions.

🦷So remember to schedule your horses dental exam today! 🦷

01/31/2026

Just some good information for everyone! 🐴

01/31/2026

Some facts for the day!

👁️Are horses colorblind?👀
No. They see greens and yellows well, but not purples.

Who invented the horse trailer?🛻
Lord George Bentinck in the 1830s.

🐎How many Americans work in the horse industry?
Around 4.6 million with a $122 billion economic impact🏇

01/30/2026

Not sure what we are talking about when we say “sharp points”? Well here’s a few examples!

So remember how important it is for your equine to have a dental exam every year.

01/30/2026

🌬️Some horse facts for the day!

❄️Why can’t horses burp or vomit?
A horse's stomach has a powerful muscle ring (the cardiac sphincter) that prevents food from coming back up. This prevents vomiting even under extreme pressure like running.

❄️Can horses get sunburned?
Yes, especially those with pink skin. Sun protection is a must in the summer. Some horses get tattoos for that!

❄️What was the first cloned horse?
A Haflinger mare named Prometea, cloned in Italy in 2003.

🐴Don’t forget to give us a call for your horses dental exam! 🦷

DON’T WHINE EQUINE
Professional Equine Dentistry

Healthy Teeth. Happier Horses. Better Performance.

✔ Routine Dental Exams & Floating
✔ Correction of Sharp Points & Hooks
✔ Improved Feed Efficiency
✔ Better Bit Comfort & Acceptance
✔ Calm, Patient-Focused Care

📍 Based in Boswell, OK
🚗 Serving Oklahoma & Texas (3+ hr travel available)
📅 Appointments Starting February
📞 580-969-0924