This cat has an abscessed tooth. Note the painful pocket of infection behind its lower right canine tooth (arrow).

A radiograph (X- ray) showed that this tooth had an abscess at the base of its root (dark area in bone to right of arrow) and needed to be extracted.

Here Dr Fox is using a Freer periosteal elevator to separate the tooth from the gum and begin the extraction process

The tooth has been extracted. Note the length of the root compared to the length of the tooth crown. The arrow is placed at the location where the tooth-gum margin was prior to extraction and everything to the left of the arrow is root.

Extracting that very long root leaves behind a big, open tooth socket. What can be done to fill this hole?

We use a product called Consil® made by Nutramax Laboratories to fill the tooth socket. Consil® is a synthetic bone graft particulate that encourages new bone growth to fill in the hole left by the extracted tooth.

Consil® looks similar to sugar and has been placed in the tooth socket

The final step in the tooth extraction is covering the tooth socket with gum tissue. Here Dr. Fox has sutured a gingival (gum) flap over the tooth socket using dissolvable suture. This suturing helps control pain, keeps the synthetic bone graft Consil® in place and speeds the healing process. Good job!