Pet Dental Care & Teeth Cleaning for Optimal Pet Health

Regular dental care for pets results in much more than clean teeth and fresh breath. Without care, your animal companions can suffer from broken teeth, decay, infections, and disease of the gums. This neglect can lead to serious conditions such as heart, kidney, and liver disease.

Preventive dental care is the most humane approach to health and longevity in pets while avoiding painful, invasive, and expensive treatments. Your Parrett veterinarian makes recommendations for teeth cleaning and dental interventions at the annual wellness exam. Your pet's need for such care is determined by a variety of issues: general health, diet, lifestyle, and your home care regime.

Pet Dental Exam & Teeth Cleaning

A thorough exam and teeth cleaning is performed under general anesthesia for the safety of the patient. Depending upon age and health conditions, we may run laboratory tests to determine if your pet is healthy enough to undergo anesthesia. Full-mouth dental x-rays are always taken for a detailed view of the teeth and jaw.

Once the patient is asleep, your veterinarian cleans the teeth and gum, removing plaque above and below the gum line. We polish the teeth with a special paste to smooth out any scratches and may treat with fluoride to help protect them.

Every patient is monitored while under anesthesia, throughout the procedure, and until alert and recovered.

Pet Dental Care at Home

Brushing your pet's teeth is a critical part of your pet's health and can be fun for you both. Use of finger brushes, paste, dental rinses, a prescription diet, and dental chews can all be valuable components of good oral health.

For help in this area, you may enjoy the WebMD Pet Health website, which offers a slide show on How to Brush Your Dog's Teeth and the comprehensive article Ten Steps to Cat Dental Health.

The Cornell Feline Health Center offers a video about brushing your cat's teeth. Cornell Feline Health requires a fee to view this video.

For help developing a home dental care regime, read Brushing Your Pet's Teeth.