Great question. So the general definition is where the dog is in their life. Our mature dog is no longer a spring chicken, but they are mature, so, for example, a small breed dog may be between the ages of five to seven. A senior dog for a smaller breed (because they tend to live a little longer) would be about 10 to 13. And then our geriatric would be more like 15 to 18. So I know I didn't align those up precisely, but that’s the basic timeline.

Our mature, large or giant breed dogs would be more like three to five years old. And so you think about a three-year-old being young, but in a giant breed dog, that lifespan might be 9 to 10 years, so that would be mature. The senior would be more like the six to eight years old, and then the geriatric is 9 to 10 or 11.

So the veterinary answer is that you should brush your cat’s teeth every day. The human response is we would love it if you would try to brush your cat's teeth. I think I’ve had two cats, maybe three in here whose owners honestly brushed their cats’ teeth. It's pretty rare, and it’s a pretty rare cat who will allow that. Cats tend to be a little persnickety and harder to deal with, but they make seafood flavor toothpaste. So if you're interested, we can work with you on that.

If it goes well for basic cleaning, polishing, and fluoride treatment, it may be as little as 30 to 45 minutes. We've had procedures go three hours in cats as well, depending on what we’re dealing with here, so it’s hard to give a cut and dry answer. It varies dramatically.

If there are severe odors, such as in stomatitis complex cats, there's infection. And we want to try to get the infection under control before the dental. We continue antibiotics after the dental to get the infection out of the bone. If we're doing extractions or any type of underneath-the-gum work, your pet needs pain medication. If anybody's ever had gum disease and gum treatment at your dentist, it hurts. So we're going to treat your cat with pain management to make sure that they’re not in discomfort.

Extractions occur if a tooth is unhealthy. There is not much worse than having to extract a cat's tooth. It's one of my least favorite things to do. The teeth are so tiny, so it's complicated. It's not fun for the cat or the owner. But if we're going to get this cat's mouth healthy, it has to be done in many cases. So if we have these resorptive tooth lesions, you get this diseased and painful tooth out of the way for this cat. If we have periodontal disease, it's causing some root exposure. This tooth is only going to be a continual problem and source of pain for this cat. And honestly, it's going to lead to infection that spreads throughout the rest of the body. So, if a tooth is diseased beyond us being able to save it, it's better to extract this tooth and give the cat a healthy mouth again.

There’s also a syndrome called stomatitis complex in kitties. And it is a strange immune-mediated response to minor tartar and calculus buildup on the crown of the tooth. Because of severe inflammation and severe pain, we’ll see these cats drooling. We’ll smell a powerful odor from the mouth. And these cats many times come in having lost weight. The only actual treatment is extraction of those teeth. And everybody says, "Oh my gosh, I can't do that to this cat. How are they going to eat?" Well, they eat better, is what they do. After getting the pain and inflammation out, these cats feel great. I know of two cats in this clinic who have no teeth. We've extracted all the teeth because of this syndrome. But these two cats will not even eat canned food. They only eat dry food. They'll starve themselves as opposed to eating the canned food. Cats deal with it fabulously and feel so much better.

Yes, your cat has to be intubated. When we clean the teeth, we use an ultrasonic cleaner. It produces a lot of water in the mouth, and we don't want aspiration into the lungs. Not to mention by intubating, we're getting oxygen in the gas anesthesia directly to the lungs. It's the only way to safely do a dental cleaning on a cat. There are injectable anesthetic drugs that you can use in a cat, but not for dentistry. The cat needs the tube to keep the airway safe during the procedure.

A dental cleaning for cats is very involved. You can check out our website for FAQs and answers about the procedure. Also, you can see our dental cleaning video. It's a two-part basic dental cleaning video. It's filled with dogs, but dogs have bigger mouths and teeth. So they're a little easier to see than a cat. But the technique and the procedure are virtually the same. Take a look at that video if you get a chance, and that will help answer your questions; even more, the crown is essential. We can determine the crown’s health by seeing the crown, but what we can't determine is what's going on underneath the gum line. You and I go to the dentist, and yearly, we get dental x-rays done. And we can tell the dentist this tooth hurts right here, but they still x-ray all our teeth because you genuinely can't assess the tooth’s health without an x-ray to see what's going on underneath the gum line. And we talked about kitty resorptive lesions earlier. And honestly, those are extremely difficult to assess without an x-ray. They stay hidden because the gum grows up and covers the tissue or covers the diseased tooth. And we need x-rays to be able to truly see what's going on in there.