S5 E6: The Horse's Mouth - with Dr Paul Owens

I am so pleased to be welcoming our 2nd first time guest to An Equine Conversation for Season 5. We’ve had some super wild weather here in my part of the world this Spring that meant this guest and I had to reschedule recording this episode multiple times. Despite the severe storms, power-outages, trees down, no internet, we got there in the end and are bringing you an episode with our most wonderful Equine Veterinary Dentist, Dr Paul Owens from the Horse Vet Dentist.

I won’t lie, I used to think the horses mouth was a whole lot simpler than it is. For many years, my horses had an annual visit from an equine dental technician. I’d seen a couple of talks given by them & I thought I knew much of what there was to know. Gosh, how wrong I was! It was thanks to a number of wonderful horsie friends whose opinions I rate, who were working with Dr Paul Owens and singing his praises, that we too got Paul on board our horse-care team maybe 4-5 years ago now. And wow, have we learnt so much over that time. Paul’s knowledge is amazing, as is his preparedness to educate interested owners. Each time Paul’s here, which is every 6-months, there are things I learn and get to see with my own eyes in my horses mouths which is really impactful for my understanding.

We really love having Paul as part of our herd’s care team as we share the mission of improving welfare for equines through our work and both love learning more, with Paul bringing us information on the latest research into all things horses mouths. Not only that, but we get to hear some cool stories about the work he does with Zoo’s Victoria too. Which, for those of you who like me, train with positive reinforcement, mean that Paul is already really familiar with this training approach as he sees it in action in his work with the Zoo & is so awesome in supporting what I do with my herd, which can be to our amusement. In his visit here just a few weeks ago, Rufus is such a pro at loading on the crush, we’ve made it so positively reinforcing for him, that he took himself there before we were even ready for him.

In today’s episode, we’re going to peer inside the horse’s mouth with Paul and learn a bunch about how it works and equine oral health care.

Dr Paul Owens:

Paul graduated from the University of Liverpool in the UK in 2001 following a degree in Animal Science and PhD in Animal Nutrition. He worked in North Yorkshire in mixed practice where he developed his interest in equine dentistry attending several BEVA course in this field.

In 2007 Paul came to Australia working in Equine/Small Animal Practice in SE Melbourne before eventually setting up a dedicated veterinary dentistry practice in 2011 called HorseVetDentist.

The practice offers a wide range of equine dentistry services from routine dental assessments to referrals for advanced dental extraction techniques, periodontal treatments and restorative dentistry.

Paul is a tutor on the EVDS veterinary dentistry courses and teaches veterinary students at the U-Vet centre Werribee. He has been fortunate to assist with dentistry procedures at Zoos Victoria and Healesville Sanctuary.

Paull attained his MANCVS Memberships in Equine Dentistry in 2014 and continues to attend workshops in dentistry both overseas and in Australia.

In this episode we discuss:

1:23 - introduction to this episode & to Dr Paul Owens

4:08 - Dr Paul Owens bio

5:20 - welcoming Paul

6:59 - Paul’s Vet Dentist origin story & ongoing education

13:24 - the importance of evidence-based practice

15:37 - how the horse’s mouth works

20:33 - are donkey and mule mouths the same?

21:24 - what a horses’s oral check/assessment involves (a lot!)

30:53 - teeth are living structures

33:14 - the carrot bite test & the periodontal ligament

35:22 - dental pain in humans and horses (with a shout-out to Dr Chris Pearce at the Equine Dental Clinic Ltd)

40:00 - size of the carrot for the carrot bite test

42:16 - 2 big common dental diseases of the front teeth: nerve exposure & EOTRH

46:03 - more on dental (and other) pain in horses & how easy it is to miss (shout-out to Dr Sue Dyson)

51:05 - one thorough oral examination is not enough - it’s a repeated process as our horses’ mouths are dynamic & change over time

54:23 - standards for thorough oral examination timelines

57:01 - horses’ baby teeth

1:03:02 - top tips for dental health

1:11:55 - on working with Zoo’s Victoria animals

1:17:09 - episode wrap-up & what’s on next week

Links from Paul:

The HorseVetDentist on Facebook

Equine Dental Cli...