dog dental cleaning and extractions...update new dog issues

lovin'fl

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jun 7, 2011
My dog is an 11.5 year old cairn terrier. He had his teeth cleaned twice previously. The last time being two years ago and they pulled three teeth then. Since he was 9.5 then, I was told by that vet that he was getting up in age where he won't be able to be put under. So I said to be aggressive on that dental visit since it would be his last...they pulled three teeth and total cost was like $600. Then, 7 months later they told me he needed his teeth cleaned again....uggghhh. I held off until today. And we have since moved and are at new vet. They quoted me $350-500. They called me while he was under to tell me he was now at $500 and then they discovered he needed 12-15 teeth pulled and it would be about $1000-1200. What!!!!

I said to be conservative but if she felt a tooth needed to be pulled, go ahead. I will not be doing a dental again. Not sure he can due to his age. And may find new vet. We took DS's cat there for shots and they were expensive as was the quote for his neutering ($400).

This is all odd to me since we never had our dogs' teeth cleaned when growing up. They were fine. Though we had bigger dogs. After this, I really hope it helps his breath....the other two cleanings did not.
 
I have a yorkshire terrier and teeth problems are definitely more common in smaller dogs than larger dogs. I had a similar situation happen with mine, he went in for a "routine" dental cleaning, I go about every 2 years. I had just moved so was using a new vet. They ended up pulling 6 of his lower teeth including his lower canines without consulting me! I was not happy! It ended up doubling the price of the "routine" procedure and I think I ended up paying around $800. With your dogs age and that many teeth being gone, hopefully you won't have to go through that again.
 
We have labs and have never had a dog's teeth cleaned - our vet said it's not really necessary or warranted unless the dog is having issues.
 
I never had a dog get a dental cleaning...until we got a 7 pound rat terrier. She has the WORST teeth ever. She has had 21 teeth pulled in two different cleanings. And frankly, she is probably ready for some more. I swear I want to tell them, just take them all! She is almost 13 and tiny, so I don't know if there is ever a point they won't want to put her under again.
 


We were talking to someone yesterday (not a vet), who said that little dogs don't produce as much saliva as big dogs. The saliva serves to move food particles out of the mouth and since the little dogs don't have as much, their teeth are worse than big dogs. :confused3
We haven't kept up with dental visits for them, and one of them had to have a tooth pulled yesterday. We just bought some spray for daily care - hope it helps!
 
Yikes, he is going to need doggie dentures!!

funny-dental-picture-106-doggie-denture.jpg
 
Sorry, lovin' I could not resist! You know I have a Cairn too and I worry about his teeth! He's a bugger about anyone touching his mouth!

I don't know what to say. You're sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place, I suppose. I would not be very happy, I can tell you that!

Was he showing signs of dental disease? Mouth pain? Weight loss? Difficulty eating?

It seems there would have been something going on clinically if he had that much dental disease.

I did have a dog die during surgery so I only do surgery if absolutely necessary. I don't think I'd put any "limits" on what I'd do in the future, though, because it does make the vet have to think a different way, perhaps.

I guess you'll have to talk to this vet about it and make a decision about whether you want to continue on with her.

In the meantime, you will need to feed your dog soft food. It hurts like the dickens trying to chew hard kibble on gums.

ETA Oh, and give him a scratch for us!
 


Sorry, lovin' I could not resist! You know I have a Cairn too and I worry about his teeth! He's a bugger about anyone touching his mouth!

I don't know what to say. You're sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place, I suppose. I would not be very happy, I can tell you that!

Was he showing signs of dental disease? Mouth pain? Weight loss? Difficulty eating?

It seems there would have been something going on clinically if he had that much dental disease.

I did have a dog die during surgery so I only do surgery if absolutely necessary. I don't think I'd put any "limits" on what I'd do in the future, though, because it does make the vet have to think a different way, perhaps.

I guess you'll have to talk to this vet about it and make a decision about whether you want to continue on with her.

In the meantime, you will need to feed your dog soft food. It hurts like the dickens trying to chew hard kibble on gums.

ETA Oh, and give him a scratch for us!
You know these cairns are tough little buggars so he showed very little signs of dental issues. He ate like crazy and was his peppy usual self. The only things were the stinky stinky breath and he licked randomly all the time. The sofa or just in the air. And we could see his teeth were brown. He wouldn't let us clean them or look at them. Not good with nail clipping either. Stinker.

Just picked him up and they pulled 11 teeth. Poor fella isn't his spunky self. I have him snuggled up next to me on sofa. Oh, and cost was $1K. Eeek!
 
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when our dog finally died at 18, I do not think she had hardly any left. The problem is once they start going they can't eat the hard stuff anymore so they get worse. Check around for a cheaper vet
 
when our dog finally died at 18, I do not think she had hardly any left. The problem is once they start going they can't eat the hard stuff anymore so they get worse. Check around for a cheaper vet
My dog is down 21 teeth and she still eats hard food.
 
Hope your little one is feeling better now..

One of my Chihuahua's are going in Tuesday to get a dental done, he is 10 and this is his third one. They have quoted me $1100-$1700 ugh... But he has a bad mouth bite is off and the poor little guy has a tongue that is about 10 sizes to big for his little mouth. I am hoping this is his last one, I have asked them to take any tooth that looks like it will be an issue because I don't want to put him under again after this. My old man is a Manchester Terrier and is 15 and I had to put him under to get a dental done last year and I was so scared he wouldn't make it because he also has cushings disease, but he did great and has been eating fine. We do mix some soft food in with his hard because he has a hard time eating enough hard food to keep weight on him.
 
My tough guy bounced back by Wednesday afternoon. He even ate Wednesday morning. All night, Tuesday, he would not look at me...lol, guess he was mad. But a little can dog food Wednesday morning and he was over it. I guess I will stop the pain meds...maybe one last dose tonight.

tlcdoula....best wishes for your little fella on Tuesday. Mine wouldn't drink water for 24 hours until I put a little milk in a bowl with water (like 1/3 milk and 2/3 water). He drank that. The vet wasn't worried about it though, since they gave him IV fluids and they said there is water in the can dog food.
 
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My vet suggested my cat having a dental cleaning. While he was under, he had his teeth x-rayed so they could tell what definitely needed removed as opposed to a visual decision.
 
My 13 year old lab has had to get dental cleanings past couple years-and he just had 6 or 7 teeth pulled as well last week. Have never had this issue in labs before, but he is an odd dog-never liked to carry stuff in mouth nor ever went through puppy chewing phase like previous dogs. He is only fed hard food (grain free real food brand) and gets real cow bones (thick leg bones) to chew-which he does when the marrow is in there! So his teeth should have been in good shape...
Our vet bill this time was nearly $800.

Glad your lil guy has bounced back OP!
 
So I have an update on my pooch's status. Kinda wondering what's going on. So right before Valentine's day he had the dental cleaning and 9 teeth pulled. He will be 12 in August. He was given an antibiotic and completed that and was back to normal by the time we took a March 3 trip to Disney. We boarded him in the kennel with can dog food. He was there for 9 nights. The day we pick him up, at 2pm, and get him home he starts running around all restless like in the house.

I thought he was behaving oddly and then discovered, as I took him out to potty, that he had terrible diarrhea. It continued. And he was waking me all through the night to go out. Like every 2 hours. After a couple nights, I took him in to the vet and they tested his stool and said he had a bacterial infection (I forget what it was called) so they give him another antibiotic and tell me he can go back to eating his dry food as his mouth was healed and he could manage even though he's had 11 teeth removed in total. He said we'd notice an almost immediate recovery with the meds. And he was right. By the next day he was much better. He slept through that night. The next day he was almost 100% in the BM department. But then that night he was back to not sleeping.

Now he is 11.5 and for the first 10.5 years he slept in laundry room or family room as he was gated from coming upstairs to where the bedrooms were. Then, a year ago, we moved and got a place with a first floor master. So DH, the very first night in the new house, went to bed and the dog followed so DH put him up on the bed and let him sleep with us. He has been doing that since last May. He cannot jump up on the really high bed and would rarely jump down from it. When DH would get up early for work, he'd just take over his spot and sleep in with me and would let me put him down from the bed at like 7-8am. We always take him out for his last potty break at like 9-10pm. Then go to bed (well, he and DH would and I stay up later).

So, after he seemed better from the diarrhea for a couple days, he started waking all through the night and would jump off the bed and wander through the house. He'd get a drink, jump on and then off the sofa, go in our bathroom, climb under our bed and scoot around, scratch at our back porch door, scratch on the side of the bed to be put back up on it where he'd then walk all around or scratch himself or lick himself and then jump back down off the bed again. I was thinking maybe he was having some dementia or he got his days and nights mixed up somehow (the sleepless diarrhea nights were only like 3 or 4 nights, so I don't think that would be long enough to mess him up. Then I wondered if the 9 nights in the kennel messed him up). After about 5 nights of this or more, he started having a bad itch on his bottom where he was scooting and licking frantically.

After a couple days of this, I checked his bottom out and see 2 bumps (look like bug bites) under his tail and above his you-know. Side by side bumps. I call vet on a Thursday but they can't get us in until Tuesday. So he continues going nuts over the itchy bottom and not sleeping. But instead of just wandering the house, he's dragging his bottom all around and licking it and whatnot. I give him Benedryl and it mildly helps. When we go to vet they see the area but it's now two little scabs and they aren't concerned about it. They express his glands and it's no issue there. They give me ointment to put on the area.

So his bottom seems to clear up and he stops dragging and licking it for a couple days. Then he start frantically chewing on an area in his inside thigh area and makes it bald. It has some bumps too. So I put the ointment there too and keep up with the Benedryl. He calms down on that area but then moves over to the other inner thigh area. So I add that to the ointment list. All the bumps seem to get better with like 3-4 days on ointment. But he still, this whole time, is waking all through the night and getting off the bed...usually around 12am. He'll sleep on the floor by the bed for a coupe hours and then get up and walk around and settle in again. Then around 3-4 am he gets up and scratches on the bed to get back up. We put him up and he lays down briefly and then jumps off the bed again. At 5am he's scratching the bed and walking around, ready to be up for the day.

His bumps seemed healed. I stopped applying to the butt area first while the thigh ones were healing. I stopped the Benedryl in case that was, for some reason, making him sleepless at night. Nope. Still sleepless. And now the bottom bumps are back. He also is now short tempered and nippy when I go to apply the ointment and even sometimes when we pick him up.

We walk him a bunch and let him sit on balcony to watch the neighborhood in the fresh air. Hoping that would make him tired at night. But nope.

**he is on flee and tick meds and does not have flees or any signs of mites or anything like that.
 
I'm sorry you're having so much trouble with this. I have never in my life paid for a dental cleaning for my animals. In fact, it's not something that has ever been suggested to me. Maybe due to the difference between seeing a country vet vs. a city vet? My last dog had a bunch of broken teeth, our vet just looked at them and said to watch them for signs of infection and she would pull them if they caused him any trouble. I've read that dental cleanings for pets are huge moneymakers for vets, and usually scams. Like you said, OP, when we were growing up none of our dogs went to the vet for dental checkups and they were fine.
 
Sounds exactly like what our dog had. Vet said it was a moisture issue. After tons of $ and meds from the Vet that didn't work. I found the remedy on the internet. Get some apple cider vinegar with mother. Mix it 50/50 with water, gently wash the affected area. At first the dog is not gonna like it. After it dries apply a squeeze of pure cornstarch powder not talc powder. Wash once per day and powder 2 times per day. When it starts healing you can only do the vinegar wash a couple times a week but keep up the powder regimen.
 
Sounds exactly like what our dog had. Vet said it was a moisture issue. After tons of $ and meds from the Vet that didn't work. I found the remedy on the internet. Get some apple cider vinegar with mother. Mix it 50/50 with water, gently wash the affected area. At first the dog is not gonna like it. After it dries apply a squeeze of pure cornstarch powder not talc powder. Wash once per day and powder 2 times per day. When it starts healing you can only do the vinegar wash a couple times a week but keep up the powder regimen.
Wow, thanks. I will try it. What is apple cider vinegar with 'mother'? Was mother a typo? Thanks so much.
 
Wow, thanks. I will try it. What is apple cider vinegar with 'mother'? Was mother a typo? Thanks so much.
It is a raw unfiltered vinegar. You can see the "bits" at the bottom of the bottle. Shake before use.
 

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