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Originally Posted by Yorkiemom1  I do want to mention one tiny little thing.....I am 66 years old, April will be 67 for me....I clearly remember my childhood pets/teenaged years with pets/even as close as the 70's and 80's....I never took my dogs to a dentist!! Funny thing is, they didnt NEED it! Their teeth were in great shape, none of this rotting out of their heads scenerio we have now....I dont know if this is strictly a yorkie thing as I have only had Yorkies starting in the 80's....not breeding, just pets.....and there were not the teeth issues back then.....I dont know what in the world is rotting the teeth out of our dogs heads, but it is clearly evident. Soft food, canned food, food in loaves/rolls, raw food, table food....makes no real difference....rotting teeth is the end result.
Personally, I am at an age and my personality is such that as I age, I find I can not let go of tragic events.....if I subjected a senior to having teeth cleaned, and I lost that baby on the table during the procedure, I would never forgive myself....so I elect to give therapeutic dosing of antibiotics to my dogs that I do not want to subject to anesthesia and teeth cleaning.....there is not a tooth in any of these babies heads, that is so important that I risk putting an aging senior under anesthesia....major surgery, fine....life threatening conditions that need surgical intervention, fine....cleaning teeth that have been cleaned and maintained all these years....nope! Mine hit 12 and that is no longer a risk/ratio I am willing to take. |
I understand this viewpoint and fears of anesthesia. But dogs are either good anesthetic candidates or they aren't and age is just one factor. My dog Teddy who is only 7 just had a dental and during the procedure he had to be bagged and given glyco for his respiratory rate and heart rate dropped. The point of this is that it is unsettling to know that he had a rough ride, what was uncovered in dental X-rays was surprising and his health is better because of the procedure. He had beautiful clean teeth and the only reason he went in for a procedure was to biopsy a mass on his gums.
I disagree that food is causing these issues. It's the size of small dogs heads being too small for all 42 teeth they have. My Winston had rotated teeth and crowding along with a short upper jaw. He is set up for resulting bone and tooth loss. Without the care I give him (including five dentals in his 4.5 years of life), I would expect him to have zero teeth left.
I would forgive myself for any decision I make for my dogs that is intended to make their lives better. If I call it wrong, I'll live with the satisfaction of knowing my emotions didn't stand in the way of their health. I can understand that someone else might feel differently.
It's an individual decision and each dog's case should be evaluated on that basis. It's wrong to fear procedures because of age alone.