Dentistry

Keeping your pet's teeth healthy will give your pet a healthier, happier, longer life.  As an added bonus, clean teeth give your pet sweet breath!
Regular dental care is important to maintaining your pet's teeth and protecting your pet's health. Dental disease is the most common disease affecting pets.  By the age of three, the majority of dogs and cats are already suffering from dental disease.
We realize that pet dental care is a new idea to many people and many of our clients don't yet understand how important it is to take care of our pet's teeth and gums.  We are committed to doing our part to change this! 

An oral exam is part of every complete physical exam, so if your pet is due for an exam or vaccinations, come in and we will check your pet's oral health at that time.  During the dental exam, the veterinarian will let you know if your pet needs a comprehensive anesthetized dental assessment, hygiene and treatment visit (dental prophylaxis and treatment).

During a dental prophylaxis procedure, your pet is safely anesthetized while we perform a comprehensive oral examination, charting, cleaning and treatment of  diseased teeth to give your pet a healthier, more comfortable mouth.  We have a state of the art dental scaler, polisher, and high speed drill to assist us in providing exceptional dental care.  Comprehensive dental hygiene is provided including irrigation with an antibacterial rinse, scaling (removing tartar) from all teeth both above and below the gum line, polishing all teeth, applying fluoride and lastly applying a dental sealant.

The veterinarian provides any treatment needed to eliminate sources of infection and to eliminate or reduce gum pockets which are reservoirs of bacteria.  Treatments may include extracting severely decayed teeth, surgically trimming gums, and applying long acting sealants to exposed roots. We also have a new digital dental xray that allows us to radiograph your pets teeth to detect disease underneath the gumline. Teeth can be radiographed before extraction to verify that the root is diseased, and after to ensure that the tooth was extracted completely. Pain medications are administered if major surgery or extractions are performed.

Our technicians will also show you how to take care of your pet's teeth at home to keep them their best between professional cleanings.

Is it expensive?  Preventing dental disease is cheap.  Treating advanced dental disease can be expensive.  A pet toothbrush and toothpaste are inexpensive.  Those few dollars a year and a few minutes a day may be the best investment you can make in your pet's health!  It is always easier and cheaper to prevent disease or to treat it at an early stage than to treat more advanced disease.  So, the best thing for your pet's health and your wallet is to address dental health issues early, thoroughly, and regularly.

Unfortunately, when it comes to medicine, quality costs.  The Dental assessment, hygiene and treatment visit is a complicated, anesthetized medical procedure that requires well-trained staff and a well equipped hospital to do correctly.  We invest in top quality staff and modern equipment. 

We have made an ethical commitment to provide safe humane care to all our patients.  Because of this commitment, we routinely include all the essential elements of a safe, effective and humane procedure on all medical care plans (pain medications, IV catheter and IV fluids, patient warming, anesthesia monitoring, comprehensive dental assessment and charting, age appropriate pre-anesthetic safety blood testing and/or urinalysis, etc.).

What does OraVet Dental Sealant do?  OraVet is a two step process that helps seal out plague and bacteria and decay.  After we apply the Sealant while your pet is under anesthesia, you follow up with quick and easy once-a-week applications of OraVet Prevention Gel at home to refresh the seal.  OraVet can be used alone or with brushing for optimum protection.