Pet Dental Care: An Important
Routine for Good Pet Health
Animal Kind Veterinary Hospital recommends regular preventive dental care as the key to maintaining your pet’s long-term health. Comprehensive routine care for teeth both above and below the gum line has been shown to dramatically extend your pet’s life. At each exam, we perform a careful check of your pet’s mouth for:
- Correct bite
- Jaw injury
- Abscesses
- Gingivitis
- Fractured teeth
- Damage to enamel
- Tartar and calculus build up
Keeping you and your pet in mind, we always make individualized recommendations for ways to maintain or improve the health of your pet’s teeth, gums, and mouth.
Keeping Your Pet’s Teeth Clean
Regular dental prophylaxis includes professional cleaning and polishing to help keep your pet’s teeth and gums healthy. We clean the teeth ultrasonically, removing tartar and calculus above and below the gum line. The final step is polishing to make the tooth surface smooth so there is no place for bacteria to hide.
Dental X-rays for Pets
If we think that there is a problem with your pet’s teeth or some other part of his or her mouth, we use dental X-rays to get a closer look. Modern digital X-rays can be enlarged so that we are able to see tiny details of any problems that might need to be addressed.
Pet Dental Anesthesia
During every dental procedure we perform, whether your pet is having a cleaning or a tooth extracted, we administer general anesthesia so that your pet will have no discomfort and anxiety while we do a thorough exam, cleaning, and treatment. Pain medication, as well as a local dental block, is given to ensure additional pain relief before, during, and after all procedures.
Just as we do before surgery, we also may perform pre-anesthetic blood tests before giving any anesthesia. Your pet’s heart rate, respiration, and temperature are carefully monitored throughout any dental treatment and a skilled veterinary technician stays with your pet during the procedure and the recovery afterward.