Dentistry and Oral Health

As with humans, healthy dental care can reduce unnecessary pain and suffering, often times adding years of quality living for your animal companion. Brack Animal Hospital has been committed to advanced dental care starting with Dr. Howarth completing advanced dental training at the Ontario Veterinary College in 1992 and becoming the first veterinarian in Essex County with the training to perform advanced periodontal treatment. Over the last decade there have been significant advances in veterinary dental care and in 2009, Brack Animal Hospital reaffirmed its commitment to the dental specialty by sending Dr. House, Dr. Booth, and 2 veterinary technicians to an in-depth specialty dental conference. This was repeated in 2010, by Dr. House, Dr. Drew, and 2 different veterinary technicians.

What is Periodontal Disease?

Did you know that it is the Most Common clinical condition in Dogs & Cats…

To ensure high quality of care for your pet, you need to choose a hospital with high standards.

Key factors in the provision of ultimate dental care include:

• Technology used
• Services included
• Skill level of attending staff
• Advanced specialized training
• Experience

Unfortunately, similar sounding procedures vary significantly amongst veterinary hospitals.

Brack Animal Hospital believes in the importance and the promotion of ultimate dental care. Our dental services include INTRA-ORAL DIGITAL dental X-rays to assist in the optimal diagnosis of periodontal and endodontic diseases. The Davis study showed that without multiple intra-oral (full mouth) x-rays, 28% of dental disease in dogs and 43% in cats would be missed. That means that veterinary hospitals which do not use routine full mouth dental x-rays risk missing almost half of existing dental problems in cats and nearly one third in dogs. Brack Animal Hospital was the first to use traditional intra-oral x-rays (1992) in Essex County, and later introduced advances digital x-ray technology to our community (2009).

Digital x-rays are superior to traditional x-rays in that they produce sharper images for more sophisticated diagnoses, they are faster to process thereby reducing the length of anesthesia required, and they are environmentally green.

The above digital dental x-ray shows abscessed tooth roots with minimal bone present. Without the use of x-rays in this pet, one would not be able to know that extreme caution must be used to prevent jaw fracture during extraction.

What we do:

Our veterinarian(s) perform intra-oral assessments, local nerve blocks (reduces the amount of anesthesia required during tooth extraction and significantly reduces pain experienced upon recovery), and oral surgery, while our trained veterinary technicians (a team of 2) perform anaesthetic monitoring, dental charting, and cleaning/polishing of teeth. The use of circulating warm water and/or warm air blankets (electric heating pads can burn the patient and are not used) aid in maintaining body temperature during dental anesthesia. All dental anesthesia includes mandatory intravenous fluids (IV) with electronic IV pumps, the use of electronic equipment that monitors blood pressure, Sp02 (amount of oxygen being carried by your blood at the site of the monitor probe), heart rate and rhythm (EKG), respiratory rate, and body temperature. All patients that have had surgical extractions are sent home with pain medication to be given for several days post surgery. All surgical patients are discharged by a technician and/or veterinarian whom will review detailed aftercare instructions and provide you with a written copy as well. All of our dental patients receive 1-2 post-op progress exams at no charge. We want to ensure that everything is going well and that healing is complete. We also review home dental care details with you.

Pictured below are before and after photos of a Brack Animal Hospital canine dental patient.