Dental Care
Proper tooth care for our furry friends means more than just brushing! We understand the challenges of taking care of our pet’s pearly whites, and recommend not only regular dental exams, but once-yearly cleaning so your pet keeps their mouths healthier for longer.
We also understand the unique needs each breed and species (including dogs, cats, and pocket pets) have concerning their teeth, and would love to talk about it with you!
Vet Care Means Wellness Care
Like people, pets should receive consistent preventive care for their teeth. Over the age of three, there is an increased risk of dental disease in cats (over 50%) and dogs (80–90%)! Part of our nose-to-tail wellness exam is checking your pet’s teeth for buildup, cracks, or periodontal disease. We then recommend if your pet could use a teeth cleaning. Starting a pet off young with these checkups means lowered risk of dental diseases, prevents bone loss, and keeps them pain-free and infection-free.
While your furry family member might not thank you for it, they will certainly appreciate it.
Our dental services include:
- Routine Teeth Cleaning
- Dental X-rays
- Anesthesia to keep their stress levels low when tooth cleaning and care is required
- Tooth Removal
- Dental Surgery
Home Care
The other half of routine preventive care occurs at home. A few ways to maximize on at-home prevention are as follows:
- A good dental diet that keeps trapped food particles at a minimum (We recommend Veterinary Oral Health Council products!)
- Dental chews for cats and dogs
- Brushing teeth regularly
Specialized Dental Care for Pocket Pets
Pocket pets sometimes require special tooth care separate from their larger furry friends. Dr. Burris is experienced in caring for pocket pets' oral health and is happy to provide dental care for your smallest animal family members. Contact us today to learn more.
Dental Care Pricing
Dental health is an incredibly important aspect for all life stages of our canine and feline patients. Oral and dental disease are common and if addressed early in the disease process, we can prevent pain, infected, loose teeth and tooth loss. It is recommended to consider all cats and dogs >2 years old as candidates for dental cleanings. Now, when we say “dental cleaning” it really is much more than that. Dental cleanings include general anesthesia, full mouth dental x-rays (just like us!), probing for pockets, in depth oral exam for abnormalities, scaling the tartar and polishing. We base our pricing for dental cleanings on severity of disease and the amount of time we expect your pet to be under anesthesia.
We do require a blood panel to be performed within 30 days of anesthesia, for your pet's safety and everyone's peace of mind. Cost ranges from $127- $391 depending on age and health status.
We also require pre-operative medications to be given prior to anesthesia. These are to help reduce your pets stress, anxiety, and pain while they are here with us for the day. Giving these medications also helps lower the amount of gas anesthesia needed, which is overall safer for their vital organs. The cost is $45.
- Trazodone – an anti-anxiety medication with a little bit of sedation. Given the night before and the morning of the procedure.
- Gabapentin – anti-anxiety, pain and a sedative. Given the night before and morning of the procedure. If extractions are expected, we prescribe enough to help with pain post op too.
- Maropitant – a potent anti-nausea medication to be given the night before and lasts for 24 hours.
The dental packages are priced based on the amount of time we expect your pet to be under anesthesia. If your pet has a healthy mouth, then we would do a level 1 dental which is a lower cost. If your pet has significant dental disease or we know we need extractions (resorptive lesion, fractured tooth for example) then the base price increases. We do our very best to give you an expected amount at the consultation appointment.
Included for all packages:
- Premedication, anesthetic gas, and injectable post-operative pain medication.
- Monitoring, which includes blood oxygen evaluation, blood pressure, ECG, temperature, and nursing care.
- IV catheter and IV fluids, endotracheal tube, warming during the procedure
- Digital full mouth dental x-rays
- Complete oral health assessment, charting, ultrasonic scaling and polishing
- Feline - $480 - $745
- Canine - $480 - $780
- Surgery deposit - $150
These fees do not include extractions, of which the pricing varies by the tooth, how many roots the tooth has, and difficult the tooth is to extract. Extractions will also need certain supplies like a surgical pack, suture, etc. Once we have a full exam and radiographs completed, the doctor will call and talk about specific pricing for what is needed. If a consultation exam is done prior to the dental cleaning, we will do our very best to give you as accurate an estimate as possible.
We understand that dental care can be expensive, which is why we partner with Care Credit and Scratch Pay for payment plan options.
*Our feline and canine dental preventive care recommendations are based on the recommendations from the American Veterinary Dental College. For more information, please visit their website at https://avdc.org/about/
Cats, dogs, and pocket pets present different and unique needs when concerning their dental care. Contact us at (503) 498-8506 to schedule a wellness exam or make an appointment.