Veterinary Dentist – The Facts
Vet Dentists understand that a pets need and deserve a mouth free of pain and infection.
Vet dentists know that domestic dogs and cats do NOT necessarily need teeth. !
A dental therapy often with the least need for daily care vet dental care, and vet dentist follow-up ;is often best and the pet dental plan most likely to succeed. !
Dogs and cats feel dental pain just like we do. They behave differently than we do – they can not complain. They just carry on because they have no alternative.
Damaged or infected teeth – the animal would both be better served if these teeth were removed, or repaired sooner than later in most cases.
For most domestic pets a mouth free of pain and infection is vastly more important than a mouth full of teeth.
So rather than approaching our dental patients with the plan to preserve as many teeth as possible we often plan on providing your Veterinary dental patient with a mouth that has a reasonable chance of being maintained (with reasonable ongoing effort) free of pain and infection for as long as the animal lives.
But veterinary dentists have lots of simple treatments that they can easily do that really benefit the patient during a vet dental treatment, and are done as a routine..
- Bone cement – that can be used to fill small periodontal pockets, and fill post extraction cavities -like Synergy
- Periodontal sealant like Sanos that can easily be applied to fill small gum pockets after scaling.
- Ability to easily cap a small tooth fracture, of enamel or dentin, that has not penetrated the pulp cavity
- Ability to rapidly repaired small enamel and dental fractures with light curing human dental composites.
- Easily able to cut gum margins and have readily available electro -cautery
Because veterinary dentists have these products readily available that can be used routinely and are not that expensive, but improve the outcomes.
The vet dentists will not know which procedures are needed for each tooth until the oral cavity has been examined and all the teeth have been cleaned.
Cost is usually a factor and for about $600 to $1000 for a routine dental encompassing the points above with dental x-rays additional, antibiotics possibly additional especially the long acting injectable ones.