Jul 18, 2007
Cannondale Animal Clinic offering new animal dentistry service
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Nothing ever stays the same for too long. So brown is now the new black, and there is a new type of animal dentistry, too. Lately, Dr. Paula Belknap of the Cannondale Animal Clinic has been performing a new type of animal dentistry on about 70% of her pet patients. This new method of cleaning an animal’s teeth is much safer, more comfortable for the pets, and not as expensive.
Three years ago, Dr. Belknap, like most veterinarians, would use a loud tool that would clean teeth and shatter tartar, while the animal was under a general anesthetic. Before she started the cleaning and gave the anesthesia, though, she would first insert a catheter into her patient that would connect to a vein. The catheter in a vein was necessary in order to give Dr. Belknap an easy way of accessing that animal’s blood in case anything went wrong with the general anesthesia while she was performing the procedure.
General anesthesia, although it makes the animal not know what is going on during a dental procedural, also involves some risk, especially in older pets. Problems with anesthesia are not that common, but when they happen, they can be dangerous to an animal, and on rare occasions, can result in death.
Dr. Belknap first tried the new, anesthesia-free method on her dog, Whiskers. Then she experimented on her dog Chrissy, a Great Dane. When she saw that her dogs were fine with the new method, she tried it on her cat Miranda, and also on her blind cat, Kitty. Dr. Belknap was a little surprised to discover that her cats, just like her dogs, were fine with the anesthesia-free procedure.
According to Dr. Belknap, while the new method is effective, safer and less expensive than the traditional method, she still has to pick and choose which animals are suitable for her to perform it on. The animals have to be mild-mannered, and they must enjoy being handled, and not mind being restrained.
At the beginning of the anesthesia-free dentistry, cats are put in a restraining bag called a “cat bag.” The cat bag keeps the cats from having access to people and from scratching them during the procedure.
Good candidates are also cats and dogs who respond well to voices because the doctor will often talk to them throughout the procedure so they will keep their cool. Dr. Belknap says she has to convince the cats they are safe and that the procedure will not hurt them.
Some cats rebel a little and get startled when they hear the teeth cleaner’s hissing noise as water comes out of it, but the ultrasonic cleaner Dr. Belknap uses for the new, anesthesia-free cleaning procedure is much quieter and gentler. It glides over teeth more smoothly, and it stays cooler than the traditional tool.
Dr. Belknap says it sometimes takes two people to hold an animal but that other times it takes only one; it all depends on the way the pets react to the event. On Dr. Belknap’s dog Dulci (which is short for Dulcinea), it takes two people. Dulci is a collie and a collie’s teeth need cleaning more often than most dogs’, so it is a good thing Dulci can get through the process because she needs her teeth cleaned about every three months.
Some people might wonder why pets need to have their teeth cleaned. If they do not know any better, they think it is because the pet owners are just pampering their pets. In a way they are, because dentistry extends pets’ lives. It helps their overall health and prevents them from having pain that they cannot tell us about. For example, a dog or cat whose teeth do not get cleaned might have a rotten, hurting tooth or decaying teeth that his owner will not know about.
When teeth begin to decay and plaque and bacteria build up around the gums, the gums get inflamed, red, and infected. The body then has to filter out the infection through the kidneys, liver, heart, lungs, and bladder. This can lead to a kidney infection, pneumonia, heart failure, and bladder infections.
So what people think are pampered pets because they get their teeth cleaned are wrong. They are just healthy pets who are being protected by their owners from the risks of sickness and infection that can be caused by neglected teeth. The new, anesthesia-free dentistry is a great example of how change is good.
Katie Lyness, formerly of Thunder Lake Road, lives in California with her family.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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