Post-op Dental Care and Home Dental Care
Dr. Cierra Tabony
Central Providence Veterinary Hospital
This is Dr. Tabony at Central Providence Veterinary Hospital. I want to talk with you about postoperative dental care, as well as home dental care. If your pet has come in for a dental cleaning procedure, hopefully, we found the problem ahead of time, and there were no extractions. You want to give your pet one week of rest from any home dental care. That includes chewing or brushing the teeth, which we'll go over at the end of the video. If your pet did, unfortunately, have some oral surgery and extractions, and it's been recommended that you feed soft food, you can move to wet food, even like a bland half chicken, half white rice mixture that you cook or prescription wet food if we're produced certain that won't upset their stomach, or you can simply put warm water over the kibble if that's what they typically eat. Let it soak in for 10 to 15 minutes before you serve it.
We just protect those sutures and incisions that are in the mouth. They heal really well, but we will recheck healing in two weeks to be sure that everything's sealed up. After you go ahead from that visit, we'll be able to go back to your pet's preferred foods, including hard food if they like. Some pets do continue to like soft food, so be warned that we have to watch out for that. If we are ready, meaning the gums are healed, or they've not had any oral extractions or surgery, and we're ready for home dental care, just a couple of tips on that. I strongly recommend brushing with a flavored and enzymatic toothpaste once a day. We say brushing, but it's truly more wiping. So you're going to put the toothpaste on your finger or on a little finger brush. Have your pet facing away from you and get your finger underneath the gum line, over their canine tooth: the fangtooth that hangs down, pull all the way back, way back here over the pre-molars at molars, come around the front and get on the other side. So if you consider from the time you load your finger to get under here, around and around, it's really about a five-second job.
Give them a treat and a good boy or a good girl and encouragement after you finish. But consistency is really key with home dental care. There are excellent dental treats out there, OraVet, the very best ones. It is a little high in calories, so if you're watching their weight, we do have to be careful and adjust other calories if you're doing daily Oravet. I like the CET chews, which we carry here, and the Veggident chews, which we also carry here. There are many others. If you're purchasing over the counter, look for the VOHC.org symbol, which means that it has been third-party tested and the dental recommendation that may be on the bag is true. It's not just a marketing recommendation. So daily brushing or wiping and daily dental treats are wonderful for your dog and for your cat. You can use the same toothpaste that you use for your dog for your cat. Thank you in advance for giving it a try and taking excellent care of your pet's oral health.
If you still have other questions and you'd like to reach out to us, you can call us directly at (704) 844-8387, you can email us, or you can reach out on social media. But please do reach out, and we'll get back to you as fast as we can.
Client Testimonials
Jacob did a wonderful job both in the beginning at drop off and at the end in explaining everything we needed to know about the dental procedure. I also appreciated Dr. Tabony calling me to update me--she was very clear! - Heather R.