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Originally Posted by Yorkiemom1  Fortunately, none of mine have had pain issues with their teeth....nor any gross rotten, infected teeth....deterioration to that point would absolutely be cause for intervention....good dental care for the first 12 years of their life, can not be negated by 3-4 years of no dentals....and with the adm. of prophylactic abx. to protect other organs from any bacterial bombardment (which is almost not even an issue because of good dentals up until that age, as well as apparently good breeding behind my dogs, as my dogs teeth are strong and good and show tartar buildup only mildly to moderately, after 3-4 years of no dentals), the maintainance dose of antibiotic they receive prophylactically obviously do the trick....I can live with a little tartar on teeth....putting seniors under anesthesia and possibility of loosing one, is not something I could ever justify in my mind....I would not ever get over it.....but we have to live with decisions we make for our "dependents"! |
If you saw my dog Teddy's mouth with his porcelain white beautiful teeth that had no tartar on them you would never have thought that 8 teeth needed to come out. Without dental X-rays you do not know what the health of the teeth is under the gumline.
The risk of anesthesia is not increased due to age. The risks are due to underlying health concerns. Thankfully the risk of anesthetic death is very small when an up to date protocol is used. I think dogs need an IV catheter placed and fluids being run during the procedure with appropriate drugs and monitoring. If you are doing that, then the risk of driving to the vet to drop your dog off is far greater than the risk of anesthetic death.
I still understand the different view point. I just happen to think that oral health is very important to many other health issues in Yorkies. I had a dog with a shoulder tendinitis and it went away after the teeth were cleaned (and he had very mild tartar). There is now evidence that bad teeth or underlying periodontal disease causes inflammation elsewhere in the body.
I don't understand why anyone would give prophylactic antibiotics to dogs that don't have dental issues. What's the rationale for that? I am genuinely curious.