Question:
I am looking for information about anesthesia-free dental cleaning for
my relatively hyper 11-year-old dog. How effective is it compared to
dental cleaning using anesthesia? What are the risks? I am
interested in both positive and negative experiences.
Answer:
I've been cleaning my dogs' teeth for 13 years now.
They are used to it, lay quietly, and it takes
only about 5 or 10 minutes once or twice a month.
I do it when I notice plaque or bad breath.
Just get a scraper from your vet (better)
or FosterSmith (not the greatest but still usable)
As often as you think about it, swab his teeth
with chlorohexidine on a Q-tip.
Doing it after every meal is probably overkill
but then you'd probably never have to scrape.
If plaque develops, lay him on his side and scrape away.
It comes off like paint chips.
Scrape along the gum line, not towards it where
you could push something under the gums.
For the bottom teeth I put a bone in his mouth
to keep his mouth open to uncover the back molars.
You MUST project to the dog that
"you're not going anywhere until I finish, and
the quieter you lay there, the faster it'll be done"
In other words, I guess I'm saying that I recommend this
only to firm owners. If you let your dog negotiate everything,
he'll never sit still and you'll probably injure his gums.
(I let my dogs negotiate sometimes, but they can
tell when it's time they have to listen too.)
If you aren't the type to do the scraping, just swab everyday
and the teeth should stay clean without the scraping.
My vet recently started offering anesthesia-free dental cleaning and it seems
to be intended for basic (uncomplicated) teeth-cleaning only. Although my 13
yr. old chihauhau is known to be snappy and has to have a muzzle on when the
vet even clips his nails, the visiting dentist said he would have had no
trouble cleaning his teeth. Turns out he couldn't because Scraps had a gum
infection and needed two teeth pulled so I had to reschedule him for the
anesthesia type.
The vet charged nothing for that first attempt and the office was full of
patients who were returning patients and all were quite happy with the service
(which ran about $130. vs. $180. for anesthesia dental).
I'd say it's a great way of maintaining good dental health by doing it once a
year and that way preventing complications by neglect.
You certainly make cleaning your dogs teeth sound easy. I however
can't even clip my own dogs NAILS and so anesthesia-free dental cleaning is a
'good' thing in MY case.
It really is quite easy for me. But I understand, it's not for
everyone.
Maybe you could get some of that chlorohexidine and swab daily, then he'd
never have to get 'scraped'. The chlorohexidine (CH) supposedly kills
plaque-forming bacteria. They sell little round pads pre-soaked with CH,
and bottles of it. I use the bottle and put it on Q-tips. They have
applicators (a little square foam thing on the end of a paper stick) but it
took a lot of CH to soak the end and Q-tips are available at the grocery
store anyway. I just wipe along the gum line.
I really do recommend trying to tackle it yourself. It keeps the plaque
from ever building up and stressing out the kidneys.
