Anesthesia and Dogs
My dog “Palette” is my first dog that I ever have.So,everything I do with her is new to me.
Since I have never had a dog in my life before her,all what vet suggests to us was what I thought will be good idea to follow.After all,I thought that they are the ones who learned a lot about animal health at school.
However,after switching my dog’s diet to raw diet,and started paying more attention to many things not just diet,I started thinking we should do our own research as well on everything regarding health of our dogs and it is important to understand what will be done and how it will be done and pros and cons on each choices that are laid before us.
Anesthesia is used very often in animal care;spay/neuter,x-ray,surgeries,teeth cleaning .. but have you ever thought pro and con on Anesthesia?
Teeth cleaning is one of those things that are considered to be a regular practice in animal care but is it necessary?
In Palette’s case,teeth is always the one of those things that our current vet wowed about and she has nice white teeth.
Old vet also amazed about Palette’s white teeth,but the old vet kept sending us reminder of teeth cleaning even though I declined with the reason that our dog teeth is in good shape and, white and I do not need the service.I had to think then that why dog with white teeth needs teeth cleaning??
Anyway, let’s look about Anesthesia.
As you already know,Anesthesia is used to make your dogs sedated and feel no pain during surgery or used for X-ray or teeth cleaning so that dogs can stay still.
So,sometimes,Anesthesia is inevitable thing. However, for old dogs,it could be something better for you to look into type of Anesthesia or drug that are less possibility of complication during the practice or look into other possibility to fix the problems without the use of Anesthesia if available.
It is because senior dog tend to have more problems in health than younger dogs. Dogs with liver problem, diabetic problems, heart problems etc have higher risk with Anesthesia usage.
According to DVM Ron Hines, if your dogs (especially old dogs) were to go under surgery or something that require Anesthesia,vet should be doing blood test to make sure your dogs are healthy.
If not healthy organs,then,they can think what other option they can do to treat the problems or what type of Anesthesia they can use with less possibility of complication to go under the surgery.
Doing the blood work before getting Anesthesia in body especially for old dogs is good idea because if you do blood work on your dog,the vet can tell you that if the dogs have liver problem or kidney problems.
Liver and kidney are 2 organs that metabolize the anesthesia drug so,it is important to check those 2 organs are in good health.(To read more,please click here.)
With Anesthesia, according to doglogic.com site, there are2 kinds: Injectable Anesthesia or inhaled Anesthesia. The site shows pro and cons on each anesthesia so,you can read here.
While googling on Anesthesia,I came across Anesthesia free teeth cleaning site. It is interesting.
This one petdentalservice.com seems like located in CA and FL
To visit their site,please click here.
This one houndstoothdental.com seem to have location in 7 states;MD,NC,TN,MA,CT,NY,OH plus Australia.To visit their site,please click here.
For Palette,teeth cleaning is really no need because she has white teeth but if your dogs need teeth cleaning, you can try switching diet (I feed raw diet to my dog and it seems working.Our dog crunch bone and gets fed big hunk of meat now and then which require her teeth sink into meet or rip and tear.It seems like silver skin is working like dental floss if you will. And food does not stick to her teeth so,it is a plus.) or try using good tooth paste (my favorite is CET toothpaste.Palette loves seafood toothpaste.The toothpaste is double enzyme and it costs about 5 dollars per paste tube.),and if both were not doing any good for your dogs’ teeth,it maybe good to try with Anesthesia free teeth cleaning.
Do you do something special for dental care for your dogs?
** I am not a vet,and please consult to your vet if you had any questions or concern with use of Anesthesia on your dog**
