We see a lot of tick-borne diseases in this area. The most common one that people think of is Lyme's Disease, and we see plenty of Lyme's Disease cases over here. We also see things like Ehrlichiosis and Anaplasmosis—those can definitely affect your pets in this area. And then in terms of fleas, not only can they carry things like tapeworm eggs, so if your pet were to eat a flea they could get tapeworms that way. But they can also cause things like anemia if there's enough of them on your pet, because all of these nasty buggers feed on blood.

Well, what you're really asking is about anesthetic safety, and while no pet is without risk with anesthesia, the risks of having problems and painful, hidden problems in the mouth are very high. In contrast, the risk of anesthesia is about 0.0 or 0.1%. It's extremely low. And we try to do everything we can to prevent problems by doing blood work to tailor the anesthetic drugs to them by doing special heart enzyme tests. We had a patient with a murmur that we caught with this special tiny stethoscope, and we were able to modify our anesthetic plan and have increased safety and a good recovery.

And so, we do things to make administering anesthesia as safe as possible. For example, it’s been shown that a cat that has either no anesthesia and physical restraint or a cat that has sedation but not anesthesia has a higher risk of problems and/or death with those items than the patient that has what's called "multimodal pain management anesthetic event." And so we make it easier for the pet and have a better outcome.

We want to make sure every pet has a fear-free and pain-free experience. So we try to utilize calming techniques in the office and minimize the fear, anxiety, and stress they may go through. And we do a pretty good job of that. We use many different techniques. And when we see painful problems, we don't want to wait until it gets bad. We want to address it. We know it's a painful problem. So we like to use pain management before, during, and after the procedure. And many times, we use nerve blocks. The numbness will go away, but the analgesia, the pain-relieving component, will last 24 to 96 hours without you having to do anything at home. And so when we need antibiotics, when we need pain meds, we're going to use them, and not every patient needs those.

It's been tried and done, but it's cleaning the stuff off the top—like what I can touch, but it's not working in the gingival sulcus. The gingival sulcus is the space between the gum and the tooth, and if you go in there when the cat is awake, you're going to damage the soft tissues of the mouth and cause a lot of bleeding and pain, and you'll miss problems. And so if you clean the teeth and make them look prettier while the cat is awake, you're still missing things and leaving the pet with an 80% chance of having a painful mouth still present, and potentially make things worse.

We can do imaging under anesthesia. So we can't do internal x-rays or 3-D imaging without anesthesia. And imaging looks at two-thirds of the tooth that is below the gum line you can't see when they're awake. 80% of the cats have problems when you look at that stat. If you don't look underneath the gum line, you'll be missing two-thirds of each tooth, then potentially missing common problems.

It really depends on behavior. We use it for both situations. Maybe you have a dog that's terrified of thunderstorms or fireworks on the 4th of July, and we use a short-acting medication that you give as needed for those kinds of situations that freak your dog out, or maybe your dog has separation anxiety. And now that people are starting to go back to work after COVID, they're struggling with that separation anxiety. Perhaps they need to take something every day, long-term. It depends on your pet's situation and their needs.

If you have any concerns, I don't think it's a problem to ask your vet about them, even if you feel like your dog is too active or your dog is having issues where they constantly need to chew their feet. You’re not sure if it's because they have an allergy or if it's a behavioral thing. Never be afraid to ask your vet any question that you have a concern about, and they'll be able to do a good thorough physical exam on your pet. They’ll perhaps recommend some diagnostics, but then they can also come up with a plan to try to create the best possible outcome for you and your pet.