Pet Dental Care

At West Hills Animal Hospital & Emergency Center, we encourage annual dental examinations and at home dental care to prevent the build-up of plaque on your pet’s teeth. Preventing the build-up of plaque is important. If not removed, it hardens to form calculus and can lead to oral diseases such as gingivitis and periodontitis. Infection at this advanced stage can spread to other parts of your pet’s body and cause life-threatening conditions, including major organ failure. Dental disease can be painful for your pet and cause other issues, such as bad breath, weight loss and behavior problems.

Professional Dental Care at West Hills Animal Hospital & Emergency Center

Our high tech dental suite includes an ultrasonic scaler, digital dental x-ray system that allows us to examine root viability on each tooth in the mouth, state of the art monitoring equipment and highly trained staff. The procedure incudes:

• We take digital x-rays of your pet’s teeth and mouth and examine individual teeth for mobility, fractures, malocclusion and periodontal disease.
• We remove plaque and tartar using modern and safe ultrasonic cleaning equipment to care for teeth both above and below the gum line.
• We give your pet’s teeth a thorough cleaning and polishing to create a smooth tooth surface that is more resistant to plaque buildup.
• We give your pet a fluoride treatment to help strengthen enamel and reduce tooth sensitivity.
• We use dental sealant to slow down the accumulation of plaque.

Monitoring and Safe Anesthesia

To administer full cleanings, we require that your pet be put under anesthesia. While this can sometimes be a point of concern for our clients, you can be assured that we practice the same safe monitoring techniques for dental procedures that we use in all of our surgeries. Before beginning the cleaning, we perform blood tests (CBC and Chemistry) to ensure that your dog or cat is a good candidate for anesthesia and to determine the anesthetic protocol for your pet. Antibiotics are also administered to prevent bacteremia (bacteria in the bloodstream) and spread of dental infection to other areas in the body.

Pets are monitored during the dental procedure by a skilled licensed veterinary technician throughout the course of the dental treatment.

If your pet is experiencing a dental emergency, please call us or bring your pet directly us.