Dental care is more important than you think.
Many pet owners do not realize just how important dental care is for their pets. In recent years, veterinarians have begun to place a much stronger emphasis on pet dentistry because oral health has been linked to physical health. A pet with an unhealthy mouth is more susceptible to other health conditions, including heart, kidney, and liver disease.
Why is an Unhealthy Mouth Linked to Other Health Problems?
When tartar and plaque build up on the surfaces of your pet’s teeth, the results can be more than bad breath and poor aesthetics. This oral buildup contains bacteria which can then seep below the gum line and into your pet’s bloodstream. From there, the bacteria is channeled into other organs in your pet’s body, often causing infection and disease. It is so important to keep your pet’s mouth clean because oral health directly affects physical health in ways that many pet owners don’t even realize!
Professional and At-Home Care Is Important.
While we don’t have a set schedule for professional dental care needs for pets, we do recommend that certain breeds, which are more prone to dental disease, take a more aggressive approach to dental disease prevention. During each physical exam, our veterinarians at our animal hospital in Granbury offer pet dentistry exams to check for the level of buildup on your pet’s teeth and damage to their mouth. Depending on our findings, our team may recommend professional pet dentistry to get your pet’s oral cavity clean and healthy.
A professional dental consists of the following steps:
- Oral examination to check for specific areas that need to be addressed
- Administration of anesthesia as a professional dental must be performed on a sedated pet to ensure that the cleaning can be thorough
- Scaling and cleaning to remove buildup
- Polishing to remove grooves in teeth and discourage future buildup
- Extractions if there are teeth that cannot be salvaged
Your pet’s oral health, just like your own, cannot be dependent upon annual visits only. Ongoing at-home dental care is a must! At Acton Veterinary Group, we recommend a number of at-home dental care techniques and tools which we would be happy to discuss with you! Our team members can teach you about proper tooth brushing techniques. We also sell and recommend a variety of dental products for home use.
If you have questions about your pet’s dental needs, please contact us. We look forward to helping you at our animal hospital in Granbury. Pet dental care is one of our top priorities.