Do you take your cat/dog to the dentist??

[Grandpa Frank]

My vet pushes us to have our cats teeth cleaned and checked about every 2 to 3 years. Twice they have had teeth pulled(I refused to pay for a root canal). It costs about $250US each time. What scares me is they are put to sleep while having it done , and there is a slight risk they might not wake up. Pets today receive almost the same medical care as their human owners(at almost the same expense). Just wonder if in other countries pets are having their teeth cared for??

Uncle Frank

 

[Anohito]

Uncle Frank, you may want to investigate getting another veterinarian. The veterinarians at the clinic where we go are quite capable of checking the condition of teeth. We only had to have one of the cats' teeth cleaned once. That was years ago (it was the late Margo) and our veterinarian did it himself. True, cats & dogs do sometimes need dental work, but are you reasonably sure that the extractions were really necessary?

Not all cats would like it, but we no longer had to have any kittycat teeth cleaning done after we started using Friskies Dental Diet as treats. True, it is actually a food and not intended as treats, but all our cats have loved it and welcomed it as treats. Also, we have always fed our cats Iams dry food. I wonder if cats & dogs might be more prone to get dirty teeth if they eat wet food.

Speaking of Miss Margo, here is a photo of her (from December 2002) that I recently uploaded to Flickr:

The caption, which I have translated here from Lolcat, is "Kitty wants to sleep now, okay? Thanks, bye!"