Dog and Cat Dental Care 101
Whinny’s Wisdoms
Hey everybody, Whinny here! Dental care is a vital component of companion animal medicine, and requires teamwork. You, as the pet owner, my docs as…well, the doctor, and even your dog or cat! Of course, their cooperation will be based on the training you do to get them comfortable with their regular physical exams. My docs have great anesthetic protocols for the actual dental work so that we don’t have to rely on your dog saying “ahhhhhh!”
Dental care starts at the very first puppy or kitten wellness visit. Your pet’s doctor will take a close look in their mouth at their sharp baby teeth to make sure they are all in the right space and not too crowded. When their adult teeth start to come in, sometimes they don’t lose their baby teeth on time. These are called “retained deciduous” teeth, and need to be extracted by your pet’s vet or they can cause damage to the permanent teeth. Small dogs and cats and especially brachycephalic (squishy-faced) animals always need earlier and more involved dental care than their long snooted counterpoints.
Whinny’s Wisdom: Brachycephalic animals have to fit the same structures (42 teeth, tongue, gums, & sinuses) in a space that is often less than half the size of what it should be based on their body size. This causes all kinds of issues, as you might imagine!
I’ve been hanging out inside the small animal treatment room at the clinic lately (playing hide and seek with Puglsy and Wednesday, the clinic cats, is great fun!). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Dr. Speziok tell someone that it is always better to address dental issues early—including preventive care!
Lots of you that read my blog are probably horse owners, and if your horse is a patient at Springhill Equine then they most likely have a dental every year. Tell me, gentlefolks, why should your clawed friends be treated differently than your hooved friends? The answer is that they all need regular dental care!
That’s right, starting at between 1-3 years of age—depending on size and breed—dogs and cats should have a dental once per year. This isn’t just coming from your best mouse friend, but from the American Animal Hospital Association and the World Small Animal Veterinary Association. Here’s a quote from WSAVA: “Regular, thorough, quality dental care is necessary to provide optimum health and quality of life in veterinary patients.”
Dog and cat teeth are a bit different than your teeth (and way different than my cute chompers, and way, way different than your horse’s!) in that they don’t often get cavities or need root canals, but instead they build up tartar and plaque which then leads to “periodontal” disease, which is disease around the tooth and under the gum line.
Whinny’s Wisdom: Multiple studies show that around 80% of dogs and 70% of cats have evidence of periodontitis by two years old.
Things To Avoid Like The Plague
While we’re on the topic of what these big veterinary associations say, let’s briefly discuss “anesthesia-free dental scaling.” Much like “lay floaters” in the equine world, this is totally inappropriate. Just like lay floaters will stick random files in horse mouths with no sedation and claim to be a “dentist,” there are companies that will run a scaler over the exposed parts of dog teeth to crack off the obvious calculus and call that “dentistry.” It’s definitely not dentistry.
Can you tell they aren’t my favorite?
Like we talked about earlier, the majority of disease occurs under the gum line in our pets, which means we need to direct the scaling there. This is not a particularly comfortable sensation, and can be quite painful if there is disease present. Not to mention, the scaler emits a jet of water to cool the teeth and push away plaque, which could be inhaled by your dog if their airway isn’t protected. At best, these companies are doing something that is only hiding the problem and doesn’t help your pet (but does help their bank account), and at worst, they could seriously hurt your pet, cause infection, and give them a ton of trauma around handling their painful mouth while not addressing any of it. So don’t ever use them. (Don’t use lay floaters on your horses either, but that’s a different blog, written by Tony himself, and you can read it here.)
Know The Dental Basics For Your Critters
Now that we’ve gotten that elephant out of the way, how can you do the right thing by your dogs and cats to keep their teeth shiny and healthy?
- Regular veterinary visits to address all of their preventive health needs.
- Brush their teeth! Ideally every day, but any amount of brushing you can do is helpful.
- Feed food or treats recommended by the Veterinary Oral Health Council to prevent dental disease.
- Dental cleanings and treatments under anesthesia by your veterinarian as recommended by them—usually yearly or every other year, starting when your pet is young.
- If you notice a broken tooth, bad breath smell, or other abnormality, bring them in to your vet for a tooth check.
- Handle their mouth and muzzle often to get them used to showing off their smile, so that it’s no big deal when their doctor takes a peak.
What Happens At A Dental Visit?
What all goes in to one of these dental procedures at the vet? Well, anesthesia is necessary, so your pet should be fasted overnight, then dropped off at the clinic in the morning to stay for the day. Usually, our awesome techs collect some bloodwork and run it while the doctor is prepping for the day. Then, your pet is examined to be sure they’re healthy and fit for their procedure. The team gives medicine to help relax your pet, and then an IV catheter is placed in one of their legs. This allows us to give fluids and medication during the procedure without having to hunt for a vein.
Once bloodwork is done, the team is ready, and safety checklists are complete, your pet will be induced with another injectable drug, this time into their catheter, then they’ll be intubated—which just means a tube is placed in their airway to secure it and provide oxygen. This is super important, because like we talked about earlier, we use lots of water and push out lots of tartar. We really don’t want that going into the lungs, because it can cause pneumonia.
Once they are anesthetized and hooked up to all the monitors with their dedicated anesthesia technician diligently recording their vitals, they get x-rays taken of the roots of every one of their teeth. Then the doctor probes each tooth in multiple places to look for disease and pocketing. The combination of these two things is how the treatment plan is made, and each tooth gets its own treatment plan! Most of the time, that treatment plan will be a good scale and polish (which isn’t just for looks but buffs out the scratches from the scaler). But if a tooth has any level of disease, then we might give it an extra deep clean, instill antibiotic into the gum, or the doctor might extract it.
Luckily, dogs and cats don’t tend to care about a few missing teeth, and they can typically eat just fine after their procedure even with some gaps. After they wake up from anesthesia, they recover at the clinic for a few hours and then go back home with you!
Folks, the tooth is this: your pets need quality dental care by their veterinarian, and they need it starting young, and repeated often! You can call the office to schedule a dental appointment for any or all of your critters (except human children, the docs draw the line there!) at 352-472-1620.
Make sure you bring a bit of cheese for Your’s Truly!
Until next week,
~Whinny
P.S. If your dogs and cats aren’t in our computer system yet, you can fill out this form and get their info to us ahead of time! That way when you’re ready to make an appointment for them, it will all be ready to go! And make sure you check out our podcast below for all the horse health knowledge you could ever ask for, for free!
Whinny’s Wisdoms is the official blog of Whinny the Clinic Mouse at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!
again in a few days. Lots of eyes heal perfectly well this way. The ones that don’t, however, are the ones my team worries about. My minions have all had the joy of treating ulcers in eyes. They say what makes this one Number 1 on their list is that everything can be done absolutely perfectly, and things can still go bad. These ulcers are also very expensive and extremely time consuming. Treatment very quickly goes into the thousands of dollars, and is a minimum of 4 weeks. My minions also agree eye problems are a great reason to have major medical insurance on your horse!
much, much less than you pay for. My minions have seen broken teeth, missed tumors, infections caused or made worse, and, simply put, really bad floats done. Even worse, many lay floaters sedate horses which is AGAINST THE LAW. My Docs went to school for a really long time to know all the things that can go wrong when they sedate a horse. They drive around with a truck full of stuff to manage problems if things do go wrong. My Docs have the knowledge to understand how that little thing they see can be an indicator of BIG problems. I can’t be any clearer: Lay floaters are not a good answer for your horse’s health. Dentistry should be done with bright lights, sedation, a speculum, and a doctor.
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