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Newport Harbor Animal Hospital - Pet Dental Services

As one of Orange County's oldest Animal Hospitals serving pet dental health care needs of the Costa Mesa/Newport Beach/Irvine and surrounding cities since 1947, we have found that good pet dental care, at all ages of your pet's life, really pays off as your beloved pet ages. When your pet's teeth go bad, eating is painful, nutrition declines and health erodes.

As an American Animal Hospital Association accredited hospital, we follow the AAHA Pet Dental Care Guidelines. In these guidelines it is stated that pet dental care, for your pet, is essential to provide optimum pet health and quality of life. We all have examples of oral pain and how miserable it can make us. The same is true of our pets.

The exam on an awake patient helps us to plan for treatment of the mouth. However a complete exam can only be done on a patient under anesthesia. The strict standards we follow before, during and after an anesthetic procedure, help to ensure that your pet is safe and comfortable.

Pet Dental Care Starts Early Too

We will start talking to you, very early in your pet's life, about the importance of dental care. Oral examinations are an important part of a yearly pet wellness exam. Periodontal disease begins at a young age, in many of our patients. Starting early dental exams is important.

It all Starts Under the Gums

It is well proven, in research, that oral disease processes all start below the gum line, out of our view. During our dental cleaning, we take great care to clean these areas well and assess these hard to reach areas for damage or infection.

We have an up to date digital dental X-ray, in our hospital, which facilitates quick and accurate assessment of every tooth, while your pet is under anesthesia. If we need to do an advanced procedure, like a periodontal treatment or extractions, we will call you during the procedure. If we anticipate that your pet could feel any pain, we will use local anesthesia and pain medications to make your pet comfortable.

The last step in our dental treatment is polishing the teeth. This prevents pitting of the tooth enamel and helps to prevent the onset of plaque and tartar.

Our staff will teach you and talk to you about home care. We would much rather work on prevention as opposed to treatment.

If you have any veterinary pet dental questions, please be sure to ask our knowledgeable staff.

Sometimes, keeping Tiger’s chompers healthy can feel like big job. Luckily, our practice provides advanced veterinary dentistry services in addition to basic dental care.

This includes routine care such as cleaning, along with treating more complicated conditions. Because our pets don’t brush their teeth every night before bed like we do, tartar can firmly adhere to the teeth.

In order to remove this tartar, we perform dental scaling, our most basic dental procedure. During the scaling process our practice uses sonic and ultrasonic power scalers as well as hand held instruments to remove this tartar from the surface of the teeth both above and below the gum line.

Tooth extraction is another very common procedure. It is the goal of our practice for your pet to retain as many teeth as possible. However, sometimes extraction is the only option to relieve pain or ensure that periodontal disease does not advance. If not extracted, many times a diseased tooth can compromise the surrounding tissue and neighboring teeth. If caught early, there are more treatment options available for periodontal disease.

Our practice requires anesthesia for dental procedures. Because of this, we first perform a full physical exam and sometimes run blood tests. Inside the mouth, we utilize local anesthetic injections to reduce pain. We closely monitor your pet the entire time they receive anesthesia.

Our practice keeps an eye on oxygen saturation and carbon dioxide levels in their blood along with their blood pressure, heart rate and temperature. In order to help maintain the health of your pet’s mouth and teeth, you should bring your pet in for a dental check-up once a year. During these routine exams, our practice includes a general dental exam as well as teeth and gum cleaning if needed.

Catching dental problems in the early stages can greatly help your pet in the long run. Contact our practice right away if your pet experiences any of the following:

  • Chronic bad breath
  • Your pet shies away when you try to touch their mouth area
  • Excessive drool
  • Dropping food when eating
  • Bleeding in your pet’s mouth
  • Loss of appetite or weight loss
  • Yellowish brown crust of tartar around the gum line
  • Missing, loose or broken teeth