Docs Give Tiger Massive Gold Fang Tooth Replacement

This tiger who had an operation to get a gold fang implant can now be seen happily chewing away in her enclosure using her shiny new nosher.

Big cat Cara, 5, from Massweiler, in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany, recently had two complicated operations to save her bite and put her out of her suffering.

Credit: CEN/ Vier Pfoten/ Bogdan Baraghin
Cara getting her treatment

A team of international tiger experts including dentists were called in to prepare the tiger to get a gold crown on her front tooth after dentists found two deep grooves on one of her front fangs and vets feared the tooth could break at any time.

At the end of August a team of specialists had produced mould of her teeth so they could create a perfectly fitting tooth implant.

Now three weeks on from the operation Cara is showing her tooth again and using it normally, and can eat meat again and chew on bones after being put on a restrictive diet to let her tooth heel.

Credit: CEN/ Vier Pfoten/ Bogdan Baraghin
Cara getting her treatment

Biologist Eva Lindenschmidt said: “We are really pleased that Cara can bite properly now and is seen smiling showing her new gold tooth.

“The tooth crown fitted perfectly from the start.

“We saw on the X-rays that the grooves in her tooth went right back to the root canal. If the tooth had broken, she would have been in extreme pain.

“Luckily the team of international specialists in dental medicine were able to produce the gold crown including Danish vet dentist Jens Ruhnau and Dr Johanna Painer from Vienna Veterinary University.”

Credit: CEN/ Vier Pfoten/ Bogdan Baraghin
Cara getting her treatment

She added: “The operation did not have any complications and the crown fit perfectly from the start, we are happy Cara can bite properly again.”

Cara was found in the private ownership at a farmhouse in Mugnano, Italy in 2013 and was confiscated by authorities before she was transferred to the Tierart tiger station in Massweiler , Germany in 2015.


To find out more about the author, editor or agency that supplied this story – please click below.
Story By: Kathryn Quinn, Sub-Editor:  Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News


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