Today, horses have been placed in environments quite different from their natural ones. Even modern housing environments can vary from pasture to a stall and run with some turnout, a stall without turnout, or a dry lot. These variations in environment provide each discipline in equine veterinary care with different challenges, including equine dental care. Because of modern housing and care, it is more common today to see horses surviving comfortably to 25, 30, 35, and more than 40 years of age. Along with other advances in equine care, equine dentistry has played a major role in prolonging the length and quality of life of our equine partners. With higher quality dental instruments, better diagnostic imaging techniques, and more effective chemical restraint, the quality of the dental care provided by equine veterinarians has improved tremendously in recent years. In 1998, the second issue of Veterinary Clinics of North America Equine Practice was dedicated to equine dentistry. Other excellent texts have been published addressing equine dental care [1,2]. It is the author's goal in this short article to address equine dentistry as it pertains to geriatric patients. Anatomy, instrumentation, diagnostic techniques, and chemical restraint are briefly discussed. Most of the article is a discussion of dental problems frequently encountered in geriatric patients and how to treat or manage these problems.
