Ruff has a dental

Ruff is booked in for a dental

I do feel very bad as a vet having a 5 year old dog with such bad dental tartar! Like 90% of the UK dog population, he has eaten good quality dog biscuits with titbits of our food for the last 5 years and we have not brushed his teeth as we should. (I am so relieved now that I have changed him to this healthy plant-based sugar free homemade diet:)

He is also a little rescue – a stray found wandering the streets of Cyprus as a puppy eating whatever he could find in his early days. I should not use this as an excuse, but some rescue crossbreeds do seem to suffer with worse dental tartar than others. Our main error has been not brushing his teeth daily.

Ruff home all groggy after his anaesthetic

I am a vet but I chose not to do his dental myself – never nice to work on your own pet! He was booked in at 8.30am at our local independent veterinary practice (I am not a supporter of corporate veterinary groups who I feel may always have financial gain at the heart of their decisions rather than the welfare of the animal)….and I do regard our 2 vets – Charlotte and Giles so highly in our little market town.

Like all pet owners, I spent an anxious day without him worrying that he would miss us and how would he be when we fetched him after a full general anaesthetic. He was very groggy but blissfully unaware of what had happened when we collected him. He had 6 teeth removed!!!

This really shocked us, and as a family we are now committed to brushing his teeth every night and straight after, he gets a reward of half a Veggiedent that he just LOVES.

His dental also set us back £280, so I would recommend to every pet owner to set aside £20 a month in an account for their dog’s teeth to have regular dentals. Dentals cannot be claimed for under pet insurance (unless there is a medical need such as a gum growth or fractured tooth) and like our own dental hygiene; they are a necessity to keeping your pets healthy