We rescued my dog Remus from a local shelter. He's a red heeler mix (at a lanky 55lbs) and we got him at about 1.5 years old. He's now about 4 years old, but he's been missing one/a few rear teeth on the bottom on one side the whole time we've had him. When we got him, the vet thought that he may be young enough to have them grow in, but they clearly haven't, ha.
He was surrendered for helping himself to formerly alive "chicken dinner", so it's possible he lost them to a chicken fighting back. That or he was just born without them. But as a result of these missing teeth, he doesn't chew food, dental chews, or toys on that side and the teeth on that side get pretty bad, pretty quick with no regards to the doggy teeth wipes/toothpaste.
Luckily for us, our vet has a program you can pay monthly that covers an annual dental clean, 2 checkup visits, all required vaccinations, etc. The total cost works out to be the price of a normal dental cleaning, so we basically get free checkups/vaccinations and get to pay it monthly instead of as one big bill all at once.
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