Pet Dental Care is a Life-Changer
Pets with healthy mouths have happier, longer lives, and this has been proven. At Amberly Village Veterinary Hospital in Cary, you can expect our team to take a genuine interest in your pet’s well-being. This includes helping you manage their lifelong dental needs, which are just as important as your own. The basis for pet dental care is preventing oral infection, dental disease, and potential diseases of the heart, liver, and kidneys.
Cleaning your pet’s teeth can change their life and set them on the path to better health.
Recognizing Dental Problems in Your Pet
Dogs and cats are great pretenders. If they’re sick, hurting, or just not feeling like themselves, they’re probably going to hide it. However, having dental issues will cause some changes in your pet, which might include:
- Bad breath (this is a primary indication of poor oral health)
- Brown/yellow teeth
- Gums that appear red and swollen
- Drooling often
- Dropping food when eating
- Being reluctant to play tug-of-war games or play with chew toys
- Decreased appetite
- Weight loss
- Rubbing/pawing at their muzzle
How We Treat Dental Disease
Dental disease is a condition in which plaque and tartar build up on the teeth and eventually spread under the gum line. When this happens, bacteria from those substances infects the gum tissue and the roots of the teeth, causing pain, loose teeth, oral abscesses, and other problems.
- For a complete oral exam, your pet must be put under anesthesia. This allows us to examine every tooth individually and check under the gum line, and safely perform dental X-rays and teeth cleanings, too.
- Dental X-rays can alert us to tooth fractures, abscesses, and other problems under your pet’s gum line.
- When we clean your pet’s teeth, we use sophisticated scaling tools to effectively remove calculus (hardened plaque and tartar) both under the gum line and above it for a deep clean.
- We also polish the tooth enamel to make it smoother and more resistant to plaque buildup.