The Region - News from Feb. 19, 1986

A visit to an Oceanside dentist solved a painful problem for Tippy, an 11-month-old cat. In a first for the cat, as well as dentist Randy Smith, a diseased nerve was removed from a broken tooth in Tippy’s mouth during a root canal procedure. Tippy had been in pain since breaking a tooth a couple of weeks before the surgery, said the cat’s owners, Steve Alarcon and Nyna Cutts of Encinitas. It’s believed Tippy fell out of tree. The feline did not immediately let on it was in pain. But the cat was let out of the bag, so to speak, when Cutts noticed Tippy’s eyes were tearing. Smith, it turned out, knew something about fixing feline canine teeth, having witnessed similar work on a Siberian tiger while he was in dental school. Tippy quickly shook off the anesthesia grogginess and was reunited with his best friends--a dachshund he bathes and sleeps with and two other cats, Cutts said.