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A veterinary dental cleaning always begins with an initial oral exam of your dog or cat’s mouth by the veterinarian while your pet is awake.  This is generally done in the room during your consult or prior to beginning the dental cleaning visit.  This allows the veterinarian not only to get a general idea of your pet’s dental condition, but also offers you the opportunity to ask questions and to get good advice for home care that can benefit your pet. Your pet has blood drawn for analysis to identify any potential problems that the doctor needs to be aware of and to determine if the pet is healthy enough to undergo anesthesia. Your pet is anesthetized. This is what often worries most pet owners, however, under proper protocols anesthesia is very safe. We encourage pet owners to ask us about our anesthesia protocol and experience prior to scheduling a procedure.  We would gladly go over the entire procedure step by step. The doctor will also use a local anesthetic in your dog or cat’s mouth during procedures. This allows the veterinarian to use less general anesthetic thereby improving the safety of the anesthetic procedure and allowing your pet to recover more quickly and with less pain.

 While under anesthesia, a comprehensive veterinary dental cleaning will include the following:

• A complete oral exam 
• A full cleaning under the gum-line where periodontal disease lurks. It would be impossible to clean this area on an awake dog or cat, but this is where periodontal disease begins with bacteria ‘living’ below the gum tissue.
• Professional scaling and polishing of the crown, or visible part of your dog or cat’s teeth. A veterinary cleaning does require scaling or scraping the tooth to remove plaque and calculus. Scaling is completed to remove plaque and tartar build-up on the tooth crown. Last, the teeth are polished leaving a completely smooth surface of the tooth which discourages plaque and bacteria from adhering to the rough tooth surface.
• During the cleaning and oral exam, the doctor may find the need to perform additional therapy on your pet, for example recommend that a tooth be extracted.  If this is the case, the owner will receive a phone call during the procedure and will be explained the reason for the added treatment as well as given a detailed quote for such procedure. 

After recovery, your dog or cat is monitored by our trained nurses and is able to go home that same day. You will be given a full report of the findings and any additional procedures carried out along with detailed instructions of how to care for your pet at home in the days following  the dental cleaning.