Animal dentistry

Dentistry for your pets

Just like you, your animal needs adequate care for its teeth. Regular dental maintenance, such as brushing of teeth allows to reduce the accumulation of dental plaque and tartar. In doing so, the required number of tooth cleanings during its life will be reduced.

These kinds of situations are not rare, because, at any age, dogs, cats and other domestic animals can suffer from tooth, gum or jaw problems. Luckily, dental care comparable to that offered by dentists to humans are also available for domestic animals.

Observe your animal is the best preventive gesture

Does your dog seem to have tooth pain and refuses to eat its food?
Does your cat cry when eating and have bloody gums?
When your dog approaches you, do you smell bad odours?
Does your rabbit have abnormal growth of its incisive teeth?

By observing your animal regularly, you can easily prevent serious problems, such as gingivitis, a premature loss of teeth, from happening. If you believe your companion animal needs an inspection of its teeth, don’t wait, contact us. We will provide a full examination of its mouth and will make the recommendations that apply.

Let’s examine the problem in greater detail

Dental tartar can evolve into gingivitis and, eventually, into paradental disease. This disease, aside from being uncomfortable for your animal, can predispose it to other health problems. In fact, dental tartar is made of bacteria. With bad oral health, these bacteria can even get into the blood and lodge themselves in different organs (lungs, heart, liver, etc.), and have serious repercussions on the general health of your animal.

A picture is worth a thousand words…

Take a few minutes to look at the following pictures. If your animal’s mouth looks like any of these, it may be time to think about having a veterinarian looked it at.

Fractured tooth. Dogs who play with wooden sticks or hard plastic toys, but especially, who are given a bone to grind, have a risk of fracturing their teeth prematurely. Just think for a moment of the discomfort for an animal who feels pain each time it uses its mouth. In such a case a tooth extraction will be inevitable.

Cat Gingivitis. For the same reasons as for dogs, cats can suffer from oral health problems. That’s why it may be required to proceed to descaling. Not only does descaling help its dental health, but such a treatment assures your cat a better overall health.

Parodontal disease. This is a close-up of the teeth of a dog who suffers from paradontal disease. Tartar has installed itself over teeth and now has to be removed to prevent more serious health problems from showing up rapidly.

How to prevent these problems?

Your animal will probably need at least one, if not a few, dental clean-ups during its lifetime. Dental cleaning, commonly known as descaling, consists in dislodging dental tartar and polishing the teeth of our animal. With animals, this is done under general anesthesia. Depending on the oral health of your companion, tooth extraction may also be required. The longer you wait before having your animal descaled, the more it risks loosing its teeth. The frequency of descaling differs from one animal to another, but usually, the smaller animals accumulate dental tartar more rapidly than bigger dogs.

Certain croquettes are specially recognized, by their form and density, to help oral hygiene.

Besides regular tooth hygiene, such as tooth brushing, we recommend that your animal, insofar as possible, be fed a special dental diet (such as, Hill’s T/D or the formula Dentaire of Royal Canin) available in our clinic. Specific toys, as well as specialized biscuits and chewing bars can also help to maintain good oral health. However, watch out for products of low quality that may put weight on your animal without helping its dentition.