Category Dental Health and Dental Care

At home oral care is essential to decreasing dental disease.

Prevention will make a good improvement in your pets oral health if started when they are young, if they have very minor tartar accumulation, or once their teeth are professionally cleaned. If your pet has moderate to severe dental disease, your pet should be evaluated by a veterinarian and have a professional cleaning performed by their recommendations, then a prevention program can be started.

There are several things you can do to help improve your pets oral health. These prevention tips will generally slow down accumulation of plaque and tartar on your pets teeth.

Daily prevention is key to getting a good response from your efforts. Only performing these once a week or less often will not lead to a beneficial response.

Preven...

Dental Procedure Consent Form – Required For All Dental Procedures
Download & Print Form

Since the oral cavity cannot be extensively evaluated in an awake pet, routine dental cleanings, when compared to other procedures, (spay/neuter/mass removals etc.) do have a higher probability of encountering the need to address unexpected concerns. For this reason, we’d like you to read this consent form and choose how you would like us to approach unexpected diseased teeth. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about this form or procedure.

American Veterinary Dental College

Our clinic website has a dental section that has information that is easy to understand as well as specific information about Commonwealth’s goal for your pet’s oral health...

The day of the dental procedure you should expect the following;

1- Ultrasonic scaling (cleaning), full oral exam, probing for periodontal pockets, and polishing.

2- The recommendation of full mouth x-rays to evaluate all teeth, their root structures, and underlying jaw bone. These not only help document all health concerns, but are required any time tooth extractions are occurring.

3- Discussion (over the phone) of findings from exam and x-rays, treatment options, treatment cost, and expected outcome.

4- Most treatments would be performed the same day, or depending on the level of disease, a future procedure may be scheduled to address all concerns.

Unfortunately, often times dental procedures result in discovery of major hidden issues potentially including the recommendation for tooth ex...

*In Progress* – Over the next coming month Dr. Haver will be adding great information to this page.

If you have further questions please let any of our staff know.

*In Progress

FAQ’s and hot topics in dental care.

Frequent points of discussion;

1- My pet is too old for anesthesia…. While older pets do certainly have special anesthetic concerns, age itself is not a deciding factor on if a pet should or can have an anesthetic procedure performed. For example, there are some very healthy 10+year old dogs and cats, meanwhile there are some 6 year or younger pets that have major health issues. We evaluate each pet individually via several methods to help us decide on a particular pet being a good candidate for an anesthetic procedure...

This page will be your source for information on dental health in dogs and cats, and an area where you can find various documents related to dental care procedures.

The entire staff at Commonwealth Animal Hospital is dedicated to providing you and your pet the best information and procedures related to dental health.

Dental disease is the most common disease in dogs and cats – roughly 80% of pets over the age of 3 have some level of dental disease. Dental disease encompasses signs ranging from gingivitis to broken teeth. Dental disease ultimately causes pain and infection in the oral cavity...

Examples of Stage 1 through Stage 4 dental disease

*Pets with stage 1 or 2 dental disease should be evaluated and a thorough cleaning performed prior to it reaching stage 3 (or 4) disease – Once stage 3 is reached there is irreversible damage to the tooth or bone structures which often requires tooth extraction. Routine cleanings (prior to late stage disease) and evaluation will reduce the amount of dental disease your pet experiences throughout their life, thus providing them with a healthier mouth and body.