Canine Dental Care?

[Catlady711]

It is strange a vet would suggest anethesia at age 10 though.. hmmm.

What's so strange about it?

Dusty had her teeth cleaned at age 11 and 14 with no complications. We did lab work first to make sure there weren't any problems we needed to know about first, used a mild tranq. and mostly isoflorane to keep her lightly sedated so we could work.

Jack had his teeth cleaned at age 6, and Pooky & Bear (age 5) go in tomorrow for cleaning.

The head vet at our hospital has been in practice for over 30 years, and in that time done a vast number of dentistries and extractions, with anesthetic, on pets up to 19 years old!! In all that time had only lost ONE patient.

Star SHOULD have anesthetic especially if they're going to extract teeth! However I'd want pre-op blood work done first if the hospital doesn't already require it.

Here are excerpts from the AVDC (American Veterinary Dental College) and their policies as well as law on dental cleaning...


"Companion Animal Dental Scaling Without Anesthesia


In the United States and Canada, only licensed veterinarians can practice veterinary medicine. Veterinary medicine includes veterinary surgery, medicine and dentistry. Anyone providing dental services other than a licensed veterinarian, or a supervised and trained veterinary technician, is practicing veterinary medicine without a license and shall be subject to criminal charges.

This position statement addresses dental scaling procedures performed on pets without anesthesia, often by individuals untrained in veterinary dental techniques. Although the term “Anesthesia-Free Dentistry” has been used in this context, AVDC prefers to use the more accurate term Non-Professional Dental Scaling (NPDS) to describe this combination.

Safe use of an anesthetic or sedative in a dog or cat requires evaluation of the general health and size of the patient to determine the appropriate drug and dose, and continual monitoring of the patient. Veterinarians are trained in all of these procedures. Prescribing or administering anesthetic or sedative drugs by a non-veterinarian can be very dangerous, and is illegal.
Although anesthesia will never be 100% risk-free, modern anesthetic and patient evaluation techniques used in veterinary hospitals minimize the risks, and millions of dental scaling procedures are safely performed each year in veterinary hospitals."

[Glacier]

I agree with Catlady711; I don't see anything strange about the suggestion. If Star needs dental work, she needs to be knocked out for it! I would get the pre-surgical blood panel. I get it done on all my critters, regardless of age if they need surgery. Not only gives me some reassurance for that procedure, but gives the vet a baseline to start from in case something else goes wrong in the future. It's come in handy a couple times!

We've had a few dentals around here. Muskwa has broken two canines. We removed the one on his upper jaw. The other one is on his lower jaw and is an extremely complicated removal(the tooth roots are wrapped around his jawbone). My vet doesn't want to touch that one until it bugs Muskwa. He has no trouble eating or chewing up a treat at this point.

Kayleigh has had two molars removed. She came to us with a stick wedged between them. The pressure damaged her teeth, along with eating who knows what while her first owner starved her! They were removed a couple years apart as they started to bug her and cause chewing problems. She was eating her normal food and chewing on tennis balls within a few days!