By age 3,
80% of dogs and 70% of cats show signs of oral disease, according to the American Veterinary Dental Society.
Adult dogs have 42 permanent teeth. Cats have 30.
(People are only slightly superior than cats and have 32 teeth.)
One of the biggest health threats posed by periodontal disease is infection of the heart valves…one of the more common problems of older dogs and cats. In fact, a University of Minnesota – School of Public Health – found that gum disease is an early warning sign of cardio-vascular disease. These findings have been confirmed by The American Heart Association
(americanheart.org)
and The American Acedemy of Periodontology (www.perio.org).
Good oral health care is among the top things you can do for your pet to improve both the quality and length of your pet’s life expectancy.
(The other top things are: Good nutrition, a safe environment, regular check ups and vaccinations, effective parasite control, and lots of love and exercise.)
In addition to the several pages of oral hygiene information on this site, I've written a lot more about veterinary dentistry on our veterinary information site at AnimalPetDoctor.com
Introduction
Oral health in pets is really important.
Hey, one of the most important parts of your pets over all health is oral health !
In addition to being smelly and uncomfortable, inflammed gums are a direct route for bacteria into the blood stream.
Once in the blood stream, this bacteria attacks the blood vessels, lymph nodes, kidneys, joints, liver, and the heart. Diseases of these organs, caused by bacteria that entered through the gums can end up killing your pet.
So, we encourage you to take your pet's oral health seriously.
We have several services and products available to help you take care of your pet.
For pets with active gum disease (gingivitis) and tarter:
Prevention:
“The battle ground for periodontal disease is in the gingival sulcus, a location the clinician cannot visualize.”
Most practices offer dental cleaning and polishing services…but these are often offered too late…after the bone substructure is already permanently damaged.
Diagnosing early is the key and diagnostic imaging is the best way to detect early bone loss and disease before it’s obvious on visual inspection.
Advising people to allow dental x-rays of their pets even when on examination they appear healthy is difficult and often makes people wonder if the vet is recommending unnecessary procedures just to make money.
Nonetheless, some progressive vets are making such recommendations … and they are justified in doing so…. on the grounds that we won’t detect periodontal disease in the early stages before it’s obvious unless we (that means you) spend the money on radiographs
Most small, general practice veterinary clinics don’t yet have x-ray units designed just for dental radiographs.
It’s mostly a matter of the benefits not yet being worth the costs and trouble… which are considerable unless they can be spread out a lot of patients.
