Dog’s teeth

The domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) is a house, home and farm animal.  A wild ancestor of the domestic dog is the wolf.  When domestication took place, it has long been considered controversial, scientific estimates vary from 100,000 to 15,000 years before today.

Dogs have 42 permanent teeth. It has in each jaw, 3 incisors (incisors, I), corner or canine teeth (canine, C) and 4 anterior cheek teeth (premolars, P). In the upper jaw there are 2, (3 mandibular posterior molars molars, M).

Each one of the teeth is very strong and is known as the Fang (dens sectorius). In the upper jaw is the P4, the lower jaw of the M1, which is always the third to last tooth. Both attack each other like a pair of scissors and forceps are used to tear pieces of meat.

The position of the teeth is highly variable among individual dogs.  The normal type (ie, according to the wolf, for example, German Shepherd) engage the lower incisors just behind the upper jaw. In short skulls (brachycephalic) in breeds such as the Boxer and the Pekingese, the lower jaw is much longer than the maxilla mandibular retrognathia, so that the lower incisors and canines are well ahead of those of the upper (or undershot or Brachygnathia superior).

For breeds with long and narrow heads (dolichocephalic), such as the Borzoi, Whippet and Collie, the situation is reversed (micrognathia). These breeds show a behind-or undershot (Brachygnathia inferior).

Milk tooth formula
Dogs are born toothless. The first milk teeth appear with the canines from the third week of life.  It takes about six weeks to complete primary dentition to be formed with the full 28 teeth. The P1 and the posterior molars have no deciduous predecessors.

The dentition to permanent dentition starts from the third month of life when the incisors break about a month later, P1 and M1 (which indeed have no deciduous predecessors, so do not go through).  The dentition is complete in the seventh month.