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Anesthesia for Your Pet’s Dental Care

We are committed to your pet’s safety and comfort during anesthesia for dental procedures at the Animal Dental Clinic. To ensure our patients’ safety during anesthesia, we start with a detailed medical history, review recent blood work results, and perform a thorough physical exam before anesthesia begins. Anesthetic protocols are tailored for each patient to select the medications, intravenous fluids, and inhalant flow rate most appropriate for your pet.

Vigilant monitoring of vital signs and depth of anesthesia is essential to supporting your pet’s safety and comfort. At the Animal Dental Clinic, we feel this is so important that we have a Certified Veterinary Technician dedicated to monitoring your pet during their surgical procedure. Your pet’s anesthetist is solely focused on your pets anesthetic and pain control needs. Our Certified Veterinary Technicians receive additional training for this role. The following parameters are closely monitored for all patients for the duration of the procedure:

• Heart rate
• End tidal CO2
• Oxygen saturation
• Respiratory Rate
• Depth of anesthesia
• Blood Pressure
• Pain control
• Body Temperature

Our highly skilled team works to minimize anesthesia time, monitor your pet closely and provide exceptional care for your pet during dental procedures. To find out more about why we use general anesthesia to support your pet’s safety, see our Professional Dental Cleaning page.

Have you ever been told your pet can’t have anesthesia or is at a higher risk for anesthetic complications?

Have you heard that your pet is...

• Too old for anesthesia?
• Liver is not working well enough for anesthesia?
• Kidneys are not up for anesthesia?
• Breed is sensitive to anesthetics?
• They have had a bad reaction to previous anesthesia?
• Tongue turns blue when she goes to the vet?
• Littermate died under anesthesia?

You’re not alone. Many pets are at an increased risk of anesthesia complications due to age, breed or illness.

The good news is you still have options using an anesthesia specialist. We are fortunate to work with a boarded veterinary anesthesiologist to help. They have pursued extensive specialty training in anesthesia for pets with medical conditions. The board-certified anesthesiologist will focus their expertise on helping to create the safest conditions possible for your pet so they can undergo anesthesia and have their necessary procedure, which will increase their quality of life.

The veterinary anesthesiologists will put together a patient specific anesthesia plan for your pet. Older pets require lower drug doses, benefit from extra support and monitoring during and after anesthesia and need to get back to eating quickly.

Pets with liver disease may benefit from medication, and nutritional support. Some anesthetic medications don’t require liver metabolism to be cleared from the body making them safer for patients with compromised liver function.

The kidneys are critical to water balance in the body and clearing toxins. Extra pre-anesthetic fluid support and special attention to preventing and treating low blood pressure can help support fragile kidneys during anesthesia.

Some breeds can be sensitive to certain anesthetic medications. Knowing this, they will create a specific plan to avoid certain medications or use advanced techniques to improve safety for your pet’s procedure.

Not every pet reacts the same to anesthesia. If your pet has had a bad reaction to anesthesia in the past, we need to know about it. Many aspects of anesthesia can contribute to avoiding a bad reaction for future anesthesia.

Breathing problems can make anesthesia challenging. Turning blue is a serious sign related to difficulty breathing. A veterinary anesthesiologist has experience and advanced skills to act quickly to prevent and treat difficulties breathing so that your pet can have the safest conditions for undergoing anesthesia.

We are thrilled to offer the expertise and experience of a board certified veterinary anesthesiologist. If you or your primary care veterinarian are concerned about anesthesia, you can choose to have the highest level of anesthesia care before, during and after your pet’s dental procedure.