Dentistry for Small Animals
The Practice maintains a dedicated small animal dental suite. This is because during dental procedures a fine mist of bacteria and dental debris is produced by the power drills and water cooled scalers. This mist would contaminate wounds and cause a sepsis and wound breakdown and so to prevent this, we would have to do all dental work at the end of the day. This would be inconvenient for pets and their owners. Dentistry is carried out to a high standard with equipment specially designed for the job, similar to that which you would see in a human dentists room.
Once the animal is under anaesthesia, we do a complete mouth examination with full record keeping so that an accurate assessment can be made of every tooth and the work that needs to be done. We extract teeth where significant disease has already occurred and no hope of saving the tooth exists. Gum disease is a very significant problem in cats and dogs and more teeth are lost due to loss of gum and bone exposing delicate roots than primary dental decay. The gums are very intensively cleaned underneath the flap between gum and tooth and the tooth polished to help prevent build up of smelly tartar.