Pet Dental Care
There are many people who keep pets at home. Naturally, they love their pet very much. They would like to ensure long and healthy life for their pet. Such pet owners should also consider oral and dental care of their pet besides other medical care they take. For such dental care, they should consult a qualified veterinary surgeon for proper guidance.
It has been found that when a cat or a dog becomes three or four years old, 70% of cats and 80% of dogs show signs of some kind of oral diseases. Whenever you notice any problem about normal hygiene of your pet, you should consult your vet immediately rather than wait for the regular check up, because, by that time, it could be too late.
When we are talking about pet dental care, we should have some knowledge about a few common dental disease of our pet. A few of these are now being listed out to help you.
Tartar
Pets salivate quite frequently. In case, the oral hygiene of your pet is poor then some minerals, which is present in the saliva, combines with it and forms a deposit on teeth. This deposit is called tartar or calculus. These deposits adhere strongly with the teeth and also cause lots of irritation of the gum. Such irritation of the gum causes a disease called ‘gingivitis’. You could observe this disease when you see that gums of your pet closer to the gum has reddened. The breath would also be foul smelling. To avoid all this, tartar should be removed from the teeth for better dental health.
Plaque
We brush our teeth daily to clean our teeth. But, our pets cannot do so. Food materials attached to the teeth are attacked by bacteria. The action of these bacteria causes the formation of plaque around the gum line.
Periodontal disease
In case, plaque and tartar are not removed from the teeth promptly, they start accumulating in the oral cavity. This could lead to formation of abscess inside the tooth or gum which may lead to tooth loss. If there is delay in the removal of plaque and tartar, it could affect the jaw bones. In rare cases, the disease spreads through the bold stream to infect liver, heart, kidney or brain. In such a case, it could turn fatal.
Therefore, to ensure healthy and long life to your pet, you should take proper care of their teeth.
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 17th, 2008 at 10:25 am and is filed under Pet Dental Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.