"How do my dog's teeth look, Doc?"

So, you think we can just look at a tooth
and tell how much disease is present? 

Take a look at the adjacent photos. At first blush, the teeth look pretty healthy. But, when we probed further and performed radiographs, we found some pretty significant disease and two teeth had to be extracted. This illustrates something really important:  we can’t simply look at a tooth and know how diseased it is. We need to probe around the tooth and perform radiographs to look at the bone that supports the tooth in the mouth to determine if periodontal disease is present and to determine whether or not a tooth can be saved. That is why we need anesthesia. And, that is why radiographs are so important in treating many of our patients effectively when it comes to dental disease. We still get surprised at the amount of disease we can’t see just by looking. Just last week, Dr. John scheduled a “routine” dental cleaning but got some big surprises when he did the complete oral exam under anesthesia and even more surprises when he finished full mouth radiographs. He called the owners with the treatment plan and proceeded to extract one abscessed tooth and treat several other roots with an antibiotic gel to stop the disease process.  

One other thing:  Remember that gingival sulcus?  

When disease starts happening here, things start to get serious; without appropriate treatment by a veterinarian, irreversible damage can occur. The reason I bring it up AGAIN, is because I want to address hand scaling. I frequently hear people say that their dog’s teeth were hand scaled the last time they saw the groomer, or that they scale their pet’s teeth at home. Or, people ask why we need to anesthetize an animal to perform a cleaning. When an animal is awake, it *may* be doable to remove buildup from the visible part of the tooth, but it is impossible to clean effectively below the gum; this just doesn’t address the problem because disease is happening BELOW the gum, not on the tooth surface. The teeth may look pretty after they have been hand scaled, but the real problem is being ignored. It reminds me of cleaning my room growing up. It was easy to hide stuff under the bed or in drawers and the room looked good, but it was still a mess. Notice also that I said hand scaling *may* be doable. I say *may* because calculus is so hard to break up that sharp instruments and an ultrasonic scaler really are the only effective means of doing so. Here’s what the American Veterinary Dental College has to say about why we shouldn't hand scale teeth on an awake pet (link). Besides, polishing the teeth after scaling is an important part of our dental procedure because it leaves a smooth surface; plaque and calculus has a harder time developing on a smooth surface.  

A combination of home care and professional care by a trained veterinary professional will pay dividends: early identification of problems improves our chance of successfully treating your pet, saving teeth if possible and minimizing discomfort. Call our office (262-569-0801) to schedule a dental consultation. We’re so thrilled with the successes we’ve had. If you are concerned about anesthesia with your pet, check out this behind-the-scenes video on dentistry and anesthesia at our hospital.