Pet dental care is important because:

1. Gum infections hurt!

2. Gum and teeth diseases lead to other infections such as endocarditis (heart valve infection), kidney, and liver infections.

3. The pet will be more pleasant to be around with no "bad breath"

4. It will save you a lot of expense in caring for your pet in later years.

Proper dental prophylaxis involves the following steps:

1. Laboratory testing to determine anesthesia safety. As the pet grows older, internal organs begin to fail. Even though your pet seems to be in "good health", blood testing often reveals subclinical problems that are treatable when caught in time.

2. Anesthesia is required since the pet will not "open wide". Sedation is required to do a thorough job. The part of the tooth under the gum line must be cleaned, as well as the exposed portion to really do much good. Sedatives are chosen with your pet’s utmost safety in mind, and are dictated by age, weight and physical condition.

3. Scaling of the teeth to remove tartar above and below the gum line is done with both hand instruments and ultrasonic cleaning equipment.

4. Polishing the teeth after scaling is important to "smooth down" the surfaces, making them much more resis­tant to additional plaque formation. Just like with coarse sandpaper, we must then polish (fine sandpaper) to make the teeth smooth. Many veterinarians are not yet equipped to polish properly. This must be taken into account when the total fee for the dental procedure is "priced". Without polishing, dental specialists say we are really doing the pet very little good.

5. Antiseptic flushing is important after polishing to rid the mouth of the ever-present bacteria so they do not in­vade the gums irritated during the cleaning. Solutions are actually flushed beneath the gum line to get rid of these germs.

6. Fluoride coating is included with the prophylaxis procedure because it decreases teeth sensitivity, strengthens enamel, has some antibacterial effects, and decreases the rate of future plaque formation .

7. Antibiotics are often required in veterinary dentistry because teeth cleaning is not usually requested or suggested until tooth and gum disease is already present. Injectable antibiotics are used routinely. Oral medications are sometimes prescribed, depending upon the severity of infection.