Meet Whiskey, the 80-pound Munsterlander (already off to a great start with today's animal news) who survived a common form of canine oral cancer when he became one of eight pooches to undergo an experimental procedure. Faced with having to remove a large piece of his lower jaw, which is very important for things like catching frisbees and tugging on bits of rope, Whiskey's owners took him to UC Davis where a team of engineers and surgeons grew him a brand new jawbone from scratch.
The process, as the informative and playful video from UC Davis explains, involved patching up Whiskey's missing jaw with titanium reinforcements and then inserting bone growth-promoting proteins that allowed new bone to grow and restore his jaw to chewtoy-obliterating strength. Today, Whiskey's owners and his team of doctors will be on hand at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine's Center for Companion Animal Health where they'll test out his new chompers with some dog treats.
