A rose by any other name.

Our Irish Setter, Rose, is very dear to us. She and her English Springer Spaniel sister, Kate, even have their own website, Rose and Kate's.

Rose is only 4 years old but she's been through a lot. When she was only 6 months old she was diagnosed with kidney failure which is fatal. Turns out the tests and diagnosis was wrong. She's fine.

When she was a year old she was bitten by a rattle snake. Yup. Brian was working in the yard and Rose kept pushing in front of him. Finally the snake struck Rose instead of Brian. She recovered, the snake didn't.

She's four years old now. Last week when I was brushing her, I noticed one of her canine teeth was a bit purplish. Odd. She was due for a check up and some immunizations so I took her to the vet. Her tooth had been chipped. The blood vessel inside had burst and was destroying the pulp inside the tooth. She had to have an emergency root canal. The dead pulp gets infected and travels down the root of the tooth into the jaw bone.

When a person has a root canal it's expensive enough, but with dogs (and cats) it's even more so because they have to go under general anesthetic. It seems puppies don't listen when the dentist says "open wide."

Dee