AKRON, Ohio- Two local dentists performed a root canal on a jaguar at the Akron Zoo recently.
Chack, a male jaguar, was put under anesthesia for the surgery and was able to keep his tooth, the zoo said.
“Chack has been doing great since the surgery. We are monitoring him closely, but he hasn’t been missing a meal and he’s interacting with all of his enrichment as normal,” zoo veterinarian Dr. Kim Cook said in a news release on Wednesday.
Cook, as well as Dr. Lisa Petrov and her father, Dr. Nelson Petrov, performed the surgery. The Akron Zoo said the jaguar’s teeth are similar to a human’s, only bigger.
“One of the great things about our keepers is they have trained Chack and our other big cats to show us their teeth. This is important because the animals are voluntarily participating in their own health so we do not have to put them under anesthesia to check them,” Cook said.
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