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Back to Closer Look index page F - Fractures C - Sites of carnassial teeth, sockets now filled with spongy bone M - Molar tooth recently lost, socketsbeginning to fill with spongy bone. PAGE INDEX1. Greenland Dog skull,
anterior view2. Greenland Dog skull,
dorsal view3. Greenland dog, teethIts a hard life, being a polar sledge dog, and some aspects of this individual's life have left permanent traces in its skull. The dog's skeleton was found, with other membersof its team, still chained to its picket on the beach after a distemper outbreak in N W Greenland. 
The distorted region of the skull covers much of the frontal bone, which contains only an air-filled sinus (space). The brain-case is further back and this type of injury, howeverdisfiguring, need not be fatal. I think the two fractures are consistent with its having been beaten with, e.g. a whip handle. 
F - Fractures 
The Inuit remove the carnassial teeth of dogs which persistently chew their harness.