Dental health means more than just having fresh smelling breath. The accumulation of plaque ( bacteria and food particles) and tartar ( the hardening concretion of debris on the teeth) leads to periodontal disease, which can greatly affect the quality of life for your pet.

When we examine your pet's mouth, we can see how much plaque, tartar, and gingivitis (swollen, infected gums) has formed. We can assess mobility of affected teeth and be able to tell you if your pet has reached the stage where a teeth cleaning would be beneficial. When we do find periodontal disease, we assess a grade from 1 to 4 for its severity, where grade 4 is the most serious. Anything over a grade one means that there is a good chance that your pet's teeth may need special procedures done over and above a routine teeth cleaning, that extractions, x-rays or special antibiotics may be needed. Any periodontal disease above a grade 1 usually means that your pet has a painful mouth, and may only want to eat softer food, or chew on one side of their mouth. Or they may just eat less food, or be less playful than normal. Just as when we have dental pain, and it affects our well being, so it is the same for our pets. Bacteria in the mouth can travel through the bloodstream to other organs, like the heart, liver and kidneys, and cause infections in those organs as well.

A teeth cleaning is not taken lightly at our clinic. It does involve general anesthesia, and to best prepare your pet, we will do a general blood profile, to assess the organ function on your pet. If we find serious problems with the bloodwork, we may have to delay the procedure until he or she is in good enough health to undergo anesthesia. Once we determine that the bloodwork looks healthy enough to pursue this dental procedure, we have your pet come in that morning, and we do another health check up, this time including an EKG of the heart rhythm, to be sure that the heart is functioning well. We insert an intravenous catheter, so that during the procedure, intravenous fluids can be given the entire time. It is crucial to your pet's health to keep the kidneys and the body well hydrated during the entire length of anesthesia. We pre-sedate your pet with medicines that tranquilize him or her, and also to give some pain relief. General anesthesia is initiated, and your pet is intubated and put onto gas anesthesia. This endotracheal tube goes down the trachea, always giving us a clear airway for breathing, and to prevent any fluids from going down the trachea during the teeth cleaning procedure.

Two people are with your pet constantly at this time. The anesthetist, usually the doctor, starts monitoring the vital signs, starts the intravenous fluids going, and keeps your pet on the heated table to maintain body temperature. The trained technician starts the cleaning procedure. Once plaque and tartar are removed with our ultrasonic cleaning machine, each tooth is probed with a dental instrument, in order to tell us if the gums are well attached to the tooth or not. Each tooth is plotted on a chart, of which you get a copy, so we know where we have a problem tooth. If any pockets are found that are deeper than normal, it tells us that the tooth is not well attached to the gingiva (gum tissue) and bacteria and food particles are very likely to accumulate there again. We will radiograph (x-ray) this tooth with our digital x-ray machine to see if there is any infection at the root of the tooth. If there is, or if there is mobility of the tooth, we may need to extract it. If there is no infection at this time, we may insert a special liquid antibiotic into this pocket, which will help seal the gum tissue back to the tooth. Any of these special procedures is done by the doctor, and the technician then takes over the anesthesia monitoring.

Once all the teeth are plotted, and any radiographs or extractions are done, we then manually scrape up under the gums (subgingival curettage), in order to remove hidden sources of plaque. At this point, we then polish the teeth with the ultrasonic polisher, to help prevent new plaque from building up so soon. If a cleaning is not followed by a polishing, more damage to the enamel of the tooth is formed (small microabrasions are left in the enamel which more quickly fill up with bacteria and food particles), which is why we never recommend pet groomers be allowed to scrape your pet's teeth manually. When the procedure is over, we wake up your pet, and closely monitor the recovery for the next few hours, measuring vital signs every 15 to 30 minutes. Your pet is always in a front cage in the recovery area, where multiple doctors and technicians are constantly watching for any problems. If any special procedures were done, your pet will have received additional pain medicines, as well as antibiotics, to protect from infection.

Once the cleaning and polishing are over, your job now begins in order to prevent the need for a future teeth cleaning. We will instruct you as to what means are available for you to protect your pet's teeth. The most economical and easiest method is by brushing your own pet's teeth, in a similar way to how you would brush a young child's teeth. There is special veterinary toothpaste, which is used because dogs and cats don't know to spit out their toothpaste, and we don't want them to swallow fluoride, which is in our human toothpaste. This toothpaste is good tasting and ok to swallow. We do realize, however, that some pets do not let you brush, or that some of you humans will not do it. In order to protect your pet's teeth, brushing must be done 3-4 times weekly. If you just can't do that, we have other recommendations, including once weekly Oravet, a get that is applied to the teeth to prevent plaque buildup, CET Cheweez, a rawhide treat given daily to prevent the plaque buildup, Greenies, or a special veterinary diet ( Royal Canine Dental Diet) that helps to scrape the teeth clean every time they chew it.

We really want to help you keep your pet's teeth healthy and pain-free. Our doctors have gone to special continuing education classes to better train and educate themselves in cleaning and caring for your pet's teeth. Please call us to ask for any help or advice, or to come in for an examination of the teeth.