Dental Health Maintenance is Essential for General Health Maintenance of All Animals

Your four-legged furry friends.

Over their lifetime, pets, like people, need regular care of their teeth to ensure that they can live a long, healthy life free of oral pain. But, unlike people, they are unable to verbally complain about aching or mobile teeth. They must rely on their owners to help them out.

Individual pets dental needs may be basic involving preventative measures such as diagnostic dental x-rays to detect dental root problems well as anesthetic facilitated dental cleaning procedures. In other cases, their needs may be more involved, and complex.

A common misconception is that because a pet is regularly emptying his or her food bowl at mealtimes their teeth can’t be bothering them. This is actually NOT the case. Since all animals have to eat to survive they are hard-wired is to put up with pain and generally get on with their life even though their discomfort may be quite extreme.

Another common misconception is that loose teeth will come out on their own. Again, this is generally not the case since tooth roots of pets are anchored quite deeply in their mouths so many pets are forced to endure painful tooth motion for extended periods of time, sometimes, very sadly, for their lifetimes if not addressed.

Anyone that has experienced a toothache in their past can relate to the relief achieved by a visit to their dentist. Pets have similar sensations of oral pain from rotten teeth but must endure the pain in silence and rely on attentive owners to help them out.