Dentistry

Your Pet's Oral Hygiene is Important to Us

At Mahogany Vet Clinic, we take oral health seriously.  Just like us, our pets get tartar accumulation on their teeth.  While we tend to go for a good cleaning once or twice a year, we don’t tend to go that often to have our pet’s teeth cleaned. The reason we don’t do yearly or biannual pet dental cleanings is that for the best dental care possible, we must put them under a general anesthetic.  Anesthesia ensures that they are very still for the procedure.  Unlike humans, we can’t ask them to hold still and not bite while we clean ALL surfaces of their teeth thoroughly.

 

 

Pets must be still and unable to feel pain to clean under the gum line, measure their dental pockets and identify problems with their teeth.  Full anesthetic allows for excellent quality dental x-ray and can prevent extreme stress and behavioural changes that can occur by handling patients when awake.  Safety is our number one priority during our dental procedures and with a general anesthetic, we can ensure that their airway and lungs are protected from aspiration of water, bacteria from tartar and blood/saliva during the cleaning.  After full dental charting, cleaning (using ultrasonic and hand scaling), probing and x-rays we can then determine whether any teeth need to be removed and we can also flag potential problem teeth for the future.  At the end of each procedure, your pet will receive a printout of their dental ‘report card’ including photographs and x-ray images to keep for your own records.