What Happens When I Bring My Animal For Dental Work?

Dental disease is very common amongst our dogs and cats, particularly as they get older. Dental problems are sometimes noticed by owners who see that their pet may have difficulty eating, or have smelly breath, but often dental disease is picked up by the vet on a routine examination such as at a booster consultation.

Dental disease can cause a variety of problems for your pet such as pain or difficulty eating, infection or abscess formation, gingivitis (gum inflammation), and potentially even infection spreading to various other parts of the body such as the kidneys, heart and joints. Our pets are very adept at hiding signs of mild pain and you may not even notice anything is amiss, but once your pet has had successful dental treatment it is usually very obvious that they are much more comfortable.

Dental treatment is always carried out under general anaesthesia as our patients will not sit down and hold their mouths open like human patients! General anaesthesia also allows us to evaluate the teeth for stability and signs of problems, and we can then perform extractions safely and as painlessly as possible. We cannot usually determine exactly how many teeth may need to be removed until your pet is anaesthetised so we can examine and probe each tooth carefully. Before the general anaesthetic commences we will administer 2 different types of pain relief so that your pet will be as comfortable as possible during and after the procedure.

Once your pet is anaesthetised we will perform a mechanical scale. This is to remove tartar build up from the teeth. Tartar is the hard yellow/brown deposits you may see on your pet’s teeth and once this is removed we can then see the tooth underneath fully. We use a blunt probe to assess each tooth for signs of gum recession, deep pockets around the gum, fractures, or any other indications for tooth extraction.

To extract a tooth after removing the tartar we will firstly rinse the mouth out with a Chlorhexidine solution. This will help remove some bacteria in the mouth, allowing us to perform extractions in the cleanest environment possible. The gums will then be gently separated from the tooth and the ligaments holding the tooth to the socket will be broken down. Some teeth have more than one root to hold them in the socket, if this is the case we will use our high-speed drill to split the tooth into sections. This allows us to remove the tooth as safely, quickly and painlessly as possible. Once a tooth is removed we will sometimes suture the sockets together with special, quick-dissolving suture material to allow them to heal quickly. However, sometimes suturing the gums is not done as this depends on how strong the gum tissue is.

Once all the extractions are complete we will then polish the teeth. This leaves a smooth surface on the teeth, which means that plaque and tartar are less likely to form. Finally, we will rinse the mouth out to remove any polish and then we will wake your pet up from his or her anaesthetic.

We may send you pet home with antibiotics, particularly if there was infection present in the mouth or if multiple extractions have been performed. We recommend that you feed your pet a soft diet for approximately a week to allow the sockets to heal before starting to feed hard food again. However we find that most pets are ready to start eating biscuits and hard food within a few days of the dental procedure as their mouths feel so much more comfortable.

Our nurses are happy to advise you on ongoing dental care for you to provide at home so your pet keeps his teeth as clean as possible. The best preventative care for teeth is to brush them, however we appreciate that this is not always possible, especially in cats. If you want to start brushing your pets’ teeth but are unsure how to go about doing this please feel free to contact the surgery and ask a nurse to show you how. It is important to use special dog or cat toothpaste, as human toothpaste contains too much fluoride for you pet and can be dangerous.

If you cannot brush your pets’ teeth we may advise you to use a special prescription diet called Hills T/D ®. This is a special biscuit diet that actually removes plaque from the teeth before it builds up and turns into tartar. Dogs and cats usually really enjoy this diet and although it is designed to be fed as a complete diet, it can also be fed alongside your dogs’ normal diet. A free bag of this diet is included in your pets’ dental for you to try at home.