Dental health is an important aspect of the overall health in all of our animals. Bad teeth can be extremely painful. Bad breath is terrible to be around. And bad bacteria in the mouth can get into the bloodstream and cause kidney and heart disease later in life.
How we clean your pet’s teeth
Unfortunately, we can’t just put your pet in a chair, hand him some sunglasses and a magazine, and tell him to open wide for his dental cleaning. Dogs and cats have to be anesthetized for dental procedures. We give injectable pain medication and sedatives, place an IV catheter, and administer anesthesia as a combination of injectable medications and gas through a tube that is placed in the trachea (windpipe). All of the teeth are scaled and polished. Problem areas are probed and x-rayed, and bad teeth are extracted. Most procedures are less than an hour long.
Abscessed tooth on dental x-ray.
We often get asked why pet dentals are more expensive than our own dental cleanings. The answer is we have to anesthetize your pet to scale, polish, and x-ray the teeth. There are places out there that claim to do dental cleanings without sedation, but they do not do a thorough job. The teeth cannot adequately be assessed or cleaned in an awake dog or cat. I’ve seen many of these patients after they had awake dental cleanings with loose, abscessed teeth with thick tartar still present (especially on the inside of the tooth next to the tongue which would be difficult to clean in an awake patient). The anesthesia we use is very safe, in fact they use the same medications in people. We only use the safest medications and the most up to date equipment. Our technicians also monitor your pet while he/she is out by checking heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, EKG, oxygen saturation, and temperature throughout the procedure. If there are any complications, we adjust anesthesia and/or pain medications, fluid rate, add warming equipment, etc. Complications are rare, however, because our patients are monitored so closely throughout the procedure and during recovery.
The bottom line is this: dental cleanings are really important. They will not only prolong your animal’s life, but they will also make it easier for you to share the pillow every night.