Hi you all, welcome to Vetstories !
A few days ago, we decided to perform a dental scaling to my dog Lili. She is a 4 year-old female Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and she is very friendly and loving.
Lili needed a dental scaling for a while, as tartar build-up was already excessive and bad smell obvious. Tartar is a threat for dogs, as oral infection develops and antibodies accumulate on cardiac valves and kidneys. These organs are the first to get old in dogs, and antibodies from mouth contribute to aging deterioration, thus shortening the dogs´life if we do not remove tartar.
Lili was anesthetized using propofol and isofluorane (anesthetic gas) after preoperatory screening showed that she was able to undergo anesthetic procedure safely.
We encouraged Lili and started working on her.
Here you can see how dental cleaning was performed: first, tartar was removed by ultasound scaling; later, later polishing is intended to delay tartar build-up. Finally, you can see how Lili´s progressive awakening.
After dental cleaning using ultrasound, dental polishing was performed in order to obtain smooth teeth to delay tartar build-up.
Finally we can see Lili´s awakening: in first video, she is still dazed and starts moving her head.
In next video, she starts walking:
As you have already realized, all these procedures can not be done on a conscious dog: so general anesthesia is mandatory.
In order to delay tartar build-up, toothbrushing is strongly recommended. Special toothpaste is needed, and dogs can become accustomed to this relatively easily.
Dental hygiene in dogs (and cats) is very useful to avoid oral pain, loosing teeth, oral inflammation and infection. This way, heart and kidney aging due to antibodies from mouth can be avoided.
Hope this helps,
David Prandi Chevalier, DVM, PhD.
Barcelona, Spain
historiasveterinarias/vetstories 