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Animal Hospital of Chetek & Animal Hospital North (Rice Lake)
DENTISTRY FOR YOUR PET
All of us know about the benefits of routine dental care for ourselves. Daily brushing and flossing, and regular visits to the dentist keep our teeth and gums healthy and comfortable. Unfortunately, routine dental care is still an often neglected item of dog and cat general healthcare. Your pets, as well as yourselves, deserve regular dental care.
As your pet ages, tarter begins to build up at the junction of his gums and teeth. If this tartar is not removed, it accumulates until it undermines the tissue and causes receding gums. The area then becomes infected. Infection leads to foul breath, as well as pain and a constant unsavory taste for the pet. If the situation is not soon remedied, severe gum infections, abscessed teeth and cheek ulcers will develop.
Chronic infections of the teeth and gums result in problems elsewhere in the body as well. Bacteria enter the bloodstream from infected teeth and cause infection in organs such as the liver, kidneys, heart and joints. Good dental care lengthens pet's lives an average of 10-20% through the prevention of these secondary problems.
Miniature and toy breeds of dogs exhibit dental problems more frequently and much earlier in life than do the larger breeds. Cats are especially prone to gingivitis and cervical line lesions (feline resorptive lesions), a type of cavity that occurs at the gum line and eventually destroys the tooth. As a result of mouth pain cats may stop eating and show weight loss and nutritional disturbances.
You can help prevent dental problems in your pets by feeding a dry pet food. Daily or even weekly brushing of your dog or cat's teeth with a toothpaste made for pets will also help prevent tarter buildup. Oravet Chews, Milk bones, rawhide chew toys, CET rewards, and some specially designed rubber toys are all on the market to assist in this as well.
Just as with people your pets will still require regular dental exams, and cleaning or extractions as necessary. The teeth are cleaned by a veterinarian or a certified veterinary technician or a who has had additional training in small animal dentistry.
At the Animal Hospital of Chetek and Animal Hospital North we take the utmost pride in our dental training and dental technology. Here your pet will receive the same care that you would at your own dentist. We utilize digital dental x-rays to take detailed images of your pet's teeth - these images ensure that we will never remove a tooth without cause. Oftentimes a tooth may look bad on the outside, but the root is still okay, without digital dental x-rays there is no way to determine if that tooth truly needs to be removed. Removing a tooth with a healthy root is a very painful and unnecessary procedure. Furthermore if dental extractions are required you can rest assured that our veterinarians will provide additional pain medications and nerve blocks. Your pet has the same nerve sensations as you do, imagine having your teeth extracted without pain proper pain management - your pet will feel the same way.
Dental disease is often something that occurs in our geriatric pets. Because of this there is often a fear that a pet is "too old" for anesthesia. At the Animal Hospital of Chetek and Animal Hospital North firmly believe that age is not a disease. As long as proper preanesthetic blood work is done prior to anesthesia, the correct anesthetic drugs are used, and state of the art anesthetic monitors are utilized your senior pet should have no more risk of anesthetic complications then any other pet. In fact most of our patients receiving anesthetic dentals are between 8 and 20 years old. Don't let fear force your senior pet to suffer from dental disease, we can treat it at any age.
We encourage you to be concerned about your pet's oral health, and to keep in mind the availability of effective treatments for dental problems in your dog or cat. Make dentistry a part of your pet's total health care plan, for a longer and happier life.
Dental Prophylaxis was performed at the Animal Hospital of Chetek.
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Before
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After Dental Prophylaxis
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