That's how Whitney Justice describes her daughter, Taylor, thanks to the work Dr. Gallegos did to help create her gorgeous smile.

Because some of her adult teeth never formed, Taylor needed specialized care to give her a normal looking smile as she grew. They searched for a dentist who was capable of solving Taylor's challenging case and found Dr. Gallegos.

You would never know she had missing teeth and now, Taylor is taking on the world and following her passions as a ski patroller and mountain climber, raising awareness for environmental causes and conservation.

BeeZee - CEO (canine executive officer) – smart, funny, better than a wise grandmother…
Rescue (MiddleburgHumane.com): adopted December 2010

We dogs go bonkers for birdseed – don't know why, but when it's available, we tend to inhale it — hark the old saying that a dog's teeth are all in their stomach… So, we're greedy and we just gobble birdseed until we're stuffed — literally. But birdseed doesn't like dogs at all. In fact, it can result in obstruction and bloat, which can be lethal and kill your best canine friend.

Very recently – dogs are always in the now [September 2017], my dear Beagle friend Daisy nearly died from chowing down on wild birdseed. She's very lucky that her human pays close attention to her dogs and also that they are confined to the house after 10:30 p.m. (Beagles tend to sing enthusiastically over everything that passes through this property, be it raccoon, deer or fox, but middle of the night serenades by beagles in full cry aren't exactly appreciated by the next-door human neighbors, but I digress…). Daisy's human was filling up bird feeders — she does this year-round, making her yard an unofficial sanctuary for winged creatures— and went to get another bag to finish the job. While she was gone, Daisy got into the open bag of birdseed that was on the ground. Her human was gone maybe five minutes, but Beagles, like most dogs, are speed-eaters – and Daisy was literally inhaling wild birdseed. The minute her human spotted Daisy in the birdseed, she shooed her away. Little did she know the damage Daisy had done to herself already. Did I mention that dogs are speed-eaters?

About 12 hours later, in the middle of the night, Daisy kept trying to vomit but couldn't. Her human heard the "hyucking" noises and got out of bed to discover Daisy in pitiful circumstances. In no time flat, they were in the car and headed to the emergency vet clinic in Leesburg. If you haven't had a pet emergency, you probably aren't aware that there are no after-hour emergency vets in the Middleburg area. If you live elsewhere in Fauquier or Loudoun or neighboring counties, you might want to look into this. When your pet is having a crisis, especially in the middle of the night or on a weekend or a holiday, you don't need to be looking up the closest place to get emergency medical help for your pet.

The LifeCentre Animal Emergency Critical Care in Leesburg (www.tlcvets.com) saved my pal Daisy's life. AECC is open 24/7, including holidays. The vets told Daisy's human that dogs getting from sick eating birdseed is quite common, but it all depends on how much they ingest. The vets took x-rays: Daisy was stuffed with birdseed from her esophagus to tail — packed so tight she couldn't vomit or poop. It's very scary what birdseed does to dogs. We have extremely potent stomach acids, but the amount of seed eaten by Daisy combined with powerful digestive juices caused the wild birdseed to swell. She's lucky her human knows her dogs as well as she does because all that seed could have caused Daisy's insides to explode.

It's the time of year when many humans are filling their bird feeders. Please be careful with where and how you store any kind of birdseed. In addition to causing obstruction and bloat, birdseed can go moldy and the resulting mycotoxins are, well, toxic to dogs.

We canines love stinky smelly stuff. Right now I'm in the doghouse – well, you know what I mean, I'm in trouble – because I was able to get into something that I shouldn't have eaten. It was on the other side of the invisible fence and unlike my Beagle pals – neener, neener – I don't have a collar. Yet. My human's hopping mad at me. I gotta sleep off this unexpected feast, but I digress…

The bottom line for the wild birdseed caper: Daisy's pig-out cost her human $2500 in emergency veterinary care as well as several days of extreme worry. Daisy really suffered – in addition to the impaction and the drugs to get her to vomit and poop out the birdseed, there was some internal bleeding. Fortunately, the vets fixed Daisy up so she was good as new with a little R&R — this time. There won't be the next time, not with how diligently her human polices the birdseed from where it's stored to how she fills the feeders.

Daisy Beagle's a lucky dog.

Happy Thanksgiving! Remember please — no cooked bones for pets!