of the pioneers of the veterinary dental evolution, Gary Beard, Ben Colmery, Tom Mulligan, Don Ross, and Chuck Williams, were delivering dental presentations. Peter and I had found our home; people who spoke our language. These were not the only people dabbling in veterinary dentistry at the time, but they were among the first. Bob Wiggs, Colin Harvey, Sandra Manfra Marretta, Keith Grove, Steve Holmstrom, Ron Gammon, Gary Goldstein, Ken Lyon, and Chris Visser were also among the pioneers. They and Pete and I all bonded quickly. We all felt the calling, we were all accomplished photographers and could share our work visually, we all didn’t mind travelling to spread the word, and we all knew that we had something important to give to veterinary medicine.
Pete came to my small animal practice every Thursday for the next three years. He would identify dental problems while performing as a dog show judge, and have the owners schedule for dental treatment at my office. I would also identify dogs and cats within my practice that needed advanced‐level dental care and schedule them for Thursdays. Peter was an artist. He was a real artist. He not only performed excellent root canal therapy, gold crown work, and periodontal surgery, he also made bronze sculptures and gold pendant jewelry from dental gold. Weekly, for three years, I learned dentistry by the side of Peter. Peter was, in reality, a frenetic artist, but he was not a businessman. He cared little about fees, which are so very important for the survival of any for‐profit practice. He just wanted to help the animals.
Peter would not have anything to do with fees for services, and I arranged for Peter to take home the fee for the dental procedure itself, while I retained the fees for the examination, anesthesia, hospitalization and dispensed medications. It resulted in approximately a 50:50 split, with Pete reluctantly letting me stuff a check into his shirt pocket as he packed up to leave my office each week.
Pete was a very significant positive force in the acceleration of the evolution of veterinary dentistry. A number of us had been performing advanced‐level animal dentistry since the 1970s, but Pete helped further educate the pioneers in veterinary dentistry and gave us the knowledge to improve our animal dental services. Pete was instrumental in creating the first two important examinations; first the qualifying examination for the newly formed Academy of Veterinary Dentistry (AVD) in 1986, and, second, the qualifying examination for the American Veterinary Dental College (AVDC) in 1989. He lectured throughout the world, teaching and preaching the value of advanced level dental care for animals.
2005: The beginning of the Peter Emily International Veterinary Dental Foundation
The late Robert Bruce Wiggs of Dallas, TX, another of the original veterinary dental pioneers in its modern evolution, was in Denver. Pete invited Bob and myself to coffee at a breakfast restaurant. He shared with us that he had recently received a significant and unexpected return on an earlier investment.
Pete, age 73, viewed this as a chance to fulfill his dream, to help captive animals throughout the world, and he wanted some close friends to help manage the project. First, with Peter’s participation, we enlisted Steve Holmstrom, veterinary dentist from San Carlos, CA, and Ron Ferrendelli, a local fellow dentist and former classmate of Peter, along with Bert Dodd, another veterinary dentist then of Austin, TX. We established a plan to generate enough working capital to launch a small private foundation while conserving his assets. The Board of Directors was expanded and membership adjusted. Susanne Pilla was hired as Managing Director of the private foundation formed in 2005, and which in turn became the public 501(c)(3) charitable Peter Emily International Veterinary Dental Foundation (PEIVDF). Three years after the birth of his idea, Peter’s Foundation had three sets of portable dental equipment and thirty clinicians who donated their time, talent and energy several times a year to mount rescue missions to animal sanctuaries and zoos throughout the United States, providing free dental care to African lions, tigers, mountain lions, bears, primates, herbivores, birds, and other captive animals. As of writing this book, the PEIVDF has a thirteen‐person Board of Directors, and nine‐person Advisory Committee to help plan rescue missions. Today, the Foundation is setting up its most ambitious undertaking so far ‐ affiliating with operations in South Africa. Peter’s dream is becoming a reality.
Peter Emily has received national and international recognition, including from the American Animal Hospital Association. He is also the namesake of veterinary dental awards distributed at the Annual Veterinary Dental Forum each year. He will long be recognized as a giant in the field of veterinary dentistry and as a very special person in the hearts of all who have known him. He is one of a kind. His knowledge of comparative odontology is immense. It is a great privilege for me to be able to help him compile this information for all to see and share and for the benefit of animals now and in the future that will be the benefactors of this shared information.
Edward R. Eisner, AB, DVM
Diplomate American Veterinary Dental College Founding Certificate Holder in Zoo and Wildlife Dentistry
Acknowledgements
We want to express appreciation to the members of the Foundation for Veterinary Dentistry, for their ongoing dedication to improving and maintaining animal oral health.
From Peter Emily
I have had a lifelong passion devoted to helping animals. As a child, living with my grandparents Dominec and Josephine Primavera, I gained a culture of helping orphaned animals. We rescued injured birds and goats, as well as stray dogs and cats in Denver, Colorado; splinted broken legs and wings, and nursed them back to health. I applied to veterinary school, medical school and dental school and had my choice of careers. My first choice was veterinary medicine, but I was influenced by my peers to go to dental school first, and then to veterinary school. As fate would have it, marriage during dental school stalled my planned educational succession, but not my personal passion and studies of comparative dental anatomy and pathology.
Dr. Father Trane, a Jesuit priest at Regis University was influential throughout my formative years, encouraging my humane curiosity regarding oral health in all species. I practiced human dentistry after graduating from Creighton School of Dentistry, Omaha, Nebraska in 1959. Shortly after, I met Alan Krause, DVM. Both of us were certified dog show judges for the American Kennel Club and had special interest in the dental standards for the many recognized dog breeds. Dr. Krause made it possible and assisted me in continuing my passionate pursuit for improving animal oral health.
In the 1970s, Dr. Richard Cambry, veterinarian at the Denver Zoological Gardens, invited me to consult and treat dental disease in many of their exotic species, which I continue to do. It has given me inspiration to continually develop improved dental techniques for the many species of captive animals.
In 1983, Dr. Eisner and I attended the Western States Veterinary Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada where we met and joined forces with some of the veterinary dental pioneers including the speakers, Drs. Gary Beard, Ben Colmery, Tom Mulligan and Chuck Williams, in what was to become a lifelong professional friendship and the organized beginning of the evolution of contemporary animal dentistry. It has continued to fuel my insatiable desire to improve dental techniques practiced by veterinarians.
I also, wish to thank, among others, Drs. Colin Harvey and Robert Bruce Wiggs, for their friendship and joint collaboration in the pursuit of the advancement of veterinary dental techniques and service.
From Edward Eisner
A number of people, in addition to Dr. Peter Emily, have been “father” figures in my life, influencing the pathway I have traveled throughout my developing professional career. At the age of 13, I knew I wanted to be a veterinarian. Though, raised in New York State where my father and his father before him were New York City Wall Street attorneys, I spent five teenage years in northwest Montana, under the influence and tutelage of a rancher and wilderness guide, Sam Wicker. It was through Sam that I gained a true appreciation for hard work, individual responsibility, completing tasks without complaining, and the ways of, and management of, large and sometimes unruly animals, including