Dog Teeth

“Rt. 3 Campton” by Michelle McElroy

Things have been taken from you. You like that syntax, “have been taken,” because you don’t have to identify who’s done the taking. “Things” is easy too. No need to be specific because everything. Everything’s gone. Is that a less-powerful line? An extraordinary exaggeration, sure, but maybe that’s better—no gray there—you’re all grays otherwise, even your dog is gray.

The vet took your gray dog’s teeth.

Three. She pulled them and crisscrossed dissolvable sutures in their place. You’d asked before the procedure if you could keep those teeth, and a bearded guy heard you because this was in the parking lot due to social distancing, and he had his windows down, which was better than the other vehicles, two of them huge trucks with rolled-up windows and idling engines as though nothing precious were being burned.

You were so embarrassed by your question you’d turned away in this big, swooping gesture (you move like a drunk Muppet when embarrassed), face averted. “This is kind of embarrassing, but,” and you spit it out because your embarrassment was nothing compared to the thought of his teeth lost in a biohazard bin, dumped into the wet lasagna of bandages and uteruses. Part of you still thinks if you tended those teeth with enough love they’d sprout another perfect dog.

Maybe it’s because you have no children. Is that obvious? This dog is your everything, and maybe you fantasized about putting those little teeth under his pillow (which is also your pillow) and waiting for a furry Tooth Fairy to come. Once your wife said, “Wouldn’t it be amazing if he turned into a human boy?” The question hurt your heart. “But what about his dogness?” you replied. It would be amazing, yes, to have this wonderful soul realize its full humanity, but also: humanity. He is perfectly dog. And the shared pillow would be a significant boundary issue if he were human.

You wanted his teeth. If the vet insisted on taking his two front teeth—bitty incisors—and one on the bottom (the most itty-bitty of all), she should at least give them back to you. While the veterinary technician explained post-operative care, you pawed through the supply bag—two vials of pills and a jug of concentrated water additive that would turn his bowl “a pleasing green-apple color,” and you knew. No teeth. Of course they had better things to do than give you something only a fool would need. The world—disasters everywhere, incomprehensible cruelties described on the radio during the ten-minute drive to the vet’s office—an unarmed Black man shot point-blank by police, millions of kids traumatized by school-shooter drills. But you, goddamned glutton, asked “Are his teeth in the bag?”

The tech did seem sorry. She had forgotten despite making a note.

“It’s okay,” you said, “I’m glad you were so focused on the procedure itself.” And you added, trying to be a hero maybe, “He’s more important than the stuff that comes off of him.”

You brush his teeth every night, a ritual you both enjoy, the toothpaste supposedly tasting of poultry. Now you’ll wait a couple weeks before brushing because of the oral surgery, but eventually you’ll start up again. You are lucky to have this wet-nosed guy with missing front teeth. So lucky you don’t need to think about how you may have failed him (or how you’ve done little in your life, or how your parents think the little you’ve done has gone poorly). The vet said he has a genetic predisposition for gum disease, though he was a stray, so you wonder how she knows. Your gums aren’t so good, yet you’re lucky: You have a good dog—still goofy from anesthesia, his snout fur smooshed to one side—and you have the money to fix his teeth, and it’s way too much to say you have everything, but you do. 

About the author

Wendy Oleson is the author of two award-winning prose chapbooks. Her fiction appears in No Contact, Lost Balloon, The Adroit Journal, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. She's managing editor for Split Lip Magazine and lives with her wife and dogs in Walla Walla, WA.

About the artist

Michelle McElroy is a native New Englander who studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Interested in how light and shadow can transform everyday scenes are a constant inspiration. She may see these while on early morning runs, getting midnight snacks in the kitchen or simple common observations that people can connect with or create a narrative of their own. She enjoys connecting with the viewer who can relate and share a similar feelings from common scenes that are actually special moments. You can find Michelle's work at www.michellemcelroy.com.