In addition to Tesla, I've got a 4 month old border collie/whippet mix who's having some trouble sheeding one of her deciduous canine teeth. It's really loose, not infected, but she's been pretty whiney about the whole affair the last two days. I've been giving her thick rawhides to chew on as well as ice cubes and frozen peanut butter to sooth the pain. That said, I'm going to give it until Saturday to fall out on it's own (it's been sitting there for 2 weeks now), but then I'm going to have it removed. Is that something I can do myself, provided the tooth is loose enough? And if anyone has done it, is there a proper technique or do you do basically what you do when you're a kid pulling out your own teeth?

edit: alternately, any tips on coaxing stubborn teeth out?

I have my vet pull loose teeth, they've never charged me extra besides the wellness visit charge.

Callie's loose teeth were usually helped out by rawhides but if she's not taking them because of the pain, I can see how that wouldn't be much help. If you can get her to sit still long enough, maybe try wiggling it just to see if the issue is the gum tissue or if the root of the tooth is just really long and stubborn.

Luckily she's excited by food enough that she is eating the rawhides with verve, but I don't think they're actuating the tooth enough to get it to move. Same thing with the ice cubes.

She let's me manipulate the tooth with minimal squirmage (though she lodge's her disapproval once I'm done). I can wiggle it back and forth with ease, but haven't tried anything past that. This is a moral quandry for me, since she can neither give nor withdraw consent. Of course, neither does she have access to the information required to make an informed decision on the matter; so at some point if it doesn't fall out on it's own, I'm going to be forced to do something about it.

Tesla didn't have this problem because we fed him raw at this age, so pulling the meat apart and chewing the bones was enough to get the teeth out. Maybe I should get her a turkey neck and let her rail on that for a while and see if that helps. I'm sure Tesla wouldn't mind helping her finish it