I've found the tooth-wear scoring system presented by Horard-Herbin easy
to apply and useful (see "Dog Management and Use in the Late Iron Age: The
Evidence from the Gallic Site of Levroux (France)", IN Crockford 2000 ed.,
Dogs Through Time volume).
The author suggests age ranges, i.e. chronological months or years, to go
with the various tooth-wear stages A through G that she outlines. This is
fine, but it does need to be borne in mind that in some cases the
chronological ages will be younger than apparent from the teeth, i.e. dogs
living in places where there is a gritty substrate and/or subsisting some
way or other on grittier food will be chronologically young and yet have
more heavily-worn teeth.
Also just to add, in my recent rather extensive survey of both Australian
Dingos and American coyotes, I'm finding that in many cases from the
1940's through 1980's trappers apparently weren't checking their traps
very often, i.e. the canid had time to try to chew their way out of a
live-trap or chewed on the cable or chain to a leg trap, the result of
this being that by the time the trapper comes back and finds the animal in
the trap and kills it, its anterior premolars, especially those of the
lower jaw, are worn down to the gums (representing, I believe, the dog's
strenuous efforts for perhaps two to seven days to chew its way out of the
trap).
The canine teeth also, again primarily the inferiors, also show a
distinctive notch on the anterior surface, a little way above the gum. I
mention the business about the dog's efforts to get out of the trap so
that other workers who are just starting to look at dogs won't think (as I
did initially) that the dogs with severely worn teeth or notched canines
were long-term captives, i.e. escapees from somebody's coydog breeding
program or dingo X domestic breeding program. Conversations with my
mammalogist friends straightened me out about this....and I also hasten to
add, these days trappers are more strongly encouraged to check their traps
every day; there is less trade/market for dog fur and hides, a major cause
for a trapper putting out more traps than he could check in a day; and
museums are less interested in acquiring skulls in which half the teeth
are ruined. Cheers -- Dr. Deb
> Chaps,
>
> Is there a concensus as to what source(s) are best for estimating age in
> dogs?
>
> best
>
> Salima
>
> Salima Ikram
> Professor of Egyptology
> Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology and Egyptology
> American University in Cairo
> AUC Avenue, PO Box 74
> New Cairo 11835
> [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
> tel: 20-2-2615-3779; fax: 20-2-2797-4903
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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