We provide veterinary dental services including dental x-ray, cleaning and polishing and surgical extraction. We can also provide referral to a Veterinary Dental Specialist for root canals, caps, orthodontics, and other advanced dental procedures.
Here at Dawson St. Veterinary Clinic, like many other veterinary hospitals/clinics, we do dental cleanings with your pets under anesthetic.
As with all surgeries, there are risks with anesthetic, but these risks are minimized as your pet will be under constant supervision, monitoring of their heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure, temperature & more. Pre-anesthetic blood tests are recommended as well. Their health issues, age and breed of your pets are taken into consideration well beforehand (heart mumurs, brachycephalic, greyhounds, etc.).
"Anesthesia-free" dental cleaning or non-anesthetic dental cleanings (NADs) is not recommended by the American Veterinary Dental College. NADs proceedures are only removing plaque or tartar from above the gumline, as they do not clean below the gumlines.
Yes, it is less expensive, and their teeth "look" better, but "anesthesia-free" dental cleaning is deemed as a cosmetic procedure and it does not treat the underlying issues.
Looking from your pets point of view, while they are wide awake, they would not understand why they are being restrained to have someone stick sharp instruments in their mouths and start manually scraping at their teeth. They may react in fear and move injuring themselves or others in the process. Other pets may seem to be doing well by lying still when they are instead not showing how much pain they actually are in, as animals hide pain quite well.
We understand owners are just doing what they think is best for their furbabies, but the cheapest solution is not always the best solution.
For more information, please click the following links:
American Veterinary Dental College (AVDC)
Clinicians Brief
Others: