Smile! You’re On Canine Camera
Keeping Felix And Fido Happy In The Mouth
Now, February may bring to your mind visions, good or bad, of Valentine’s Day, red hearts and candy. For veterinarians, it brings to mind teeth, oral health and how to best educate our human clients to help with the best preventive measures to maintain their pets health.
February is National Pet Dental Health Month – and while I believe that every month should be Pet Dental Health Month, it offers an opportunity for education.
Here are our primary concerns:
1. Dental disease is preventable, treatable or, at a minimum, correctable. When your mouth is full of diseased teeth, it doesn’t feel good, but our pets don’t show us very well until something has blown into a big hot mess.
2. Dental health plays a significant role in overall health. Good oral care means that teeth and gums don’t develop heavy tartar and inflammation that leads to bad breath, loosening teeth and infection.
The very best thing would be if our pets grew thumbs and brushed their teeth at least twice daily and saw the dental hygienist every six to 12 months – not going to happen!
Next would be that diligent pet parents would brush at least once daily – in the reality of daily life as professionals and parents, not going to happen consistently!
So that means that over time, tartar builds up, gums become inflamed and bone loss and infection can set in.
What is a pet parent to do? First, have your pet’s dental status checked by your veterinarian and discuss if a professional veterinary dental cleaning is due. Additionally, your veterinarian can guide you through the variety of home dental care options so that you can find what works best for you and your pet – and what doesn’t work as well.
We see some sad to miraculous cases every year where a pet’s personality has long become mean and bitey, the oral odor keeps the pet at arm’s length from mom and dad and, when evaluated, the mouth is painful with obviously diseased teeth. Once those teeth are addressed, most commonly with removal, the pet’s personality is miraculously back to normal.
(Just think about how you would feel if there were five or more infected teeth in your mouth one day, and the next day the pain was gone.)
While we love to fix those cases, honestly we would much rather prevent them altogether. And, we want to make sure that owners understand what is safe and effective dental care with professional veterinary dental assessment, cleaning and treatment if needed versus potentially harmful and disease promoting treatments by laypeople without anesthesia is the way to go.
A great discussion about professional veterinary dentistry versus anesthesia-free dental care and other information can be found at: www.avdc.org/ownersinfo.
So remember, the best care is preventive care – including dental care – for your pets. Make sure to take a peek, along with your veterinarian, at every exam to know how your pet is doing.
Dr. Margot can be reached at parkhillvet.com