Skeeter

Ou dog Skeeter is famous within the Clark family for having the worst dog breath on the planet. The contributing factor to her doggy halitosis is a massive plaque buildup on her teeth. Every time we have taken her to the Vet, they tell us that her teeth need to be cleaned. The only problem is that they want +$500 to clean them. All of a sudden her breath became tolerable.

The dog groomer that we use recently merged with an Animal Hospital. Two weeks ago I took the dogs in for their semiannual trim, and they told me that I really needed to get Skeeter's teeth cleaned. The only difference this time was the Animal Hospital offered to do it for $150. This seemed better that the previous quotes, so I took her yesterday for the procedure. As best I can tell, the procedure involves sedating the animal and literally chiseling the plaque off.

Before an animal can be sedated, a blood test must be taken to make sure that there are no major problems that can be complicated by the sedation. In this case, there was. The years of plaque buildup on Skeeter's teeth had caused bacteria to infect her gums and enter her bloodstream. The bacteria reached such a level that she was on the verge of kidney failure. They informed Tracy that there was a good chance that she would not come out of sedation. We told them to go ahead with the cleaning since her teeth would kill her if the problem was not taken care of.

During the surgery the Vet had to remove 6 teeth that were badly infected, but she made it. She has 2 prescriptions to take for the next 2 weeks, and she now has to eat a prescription dog food for her kidneys. She also has to eat soft food for a week.

She was a little loopy from the anesthesia last night, but seemed much better this morning. She also has a brand new set of white choppers.