Tooth ache

Hello, My lovely Jack Russell Billy is 14 years old and has problems with his teeth. We have seen two vets and given stomorgyl 10 to stop any infection. One of the vets has said there is quite a lot of plaque to the teeth and one of them is loose, to operate it will take about one hour to remove the plaque and see what can be done about any teeth that are a problem. We are worried about the ammount of anaesthetic require for such a long time for a 14 year old dog. I would be most grateful if any-one who may have hadthe same problem could advise me. Many thanks.

Not had this problem but would he chew those teeth cleaner chews or raw bones as they may help scrape the plaque off, can the bad tooth not be pulled out under sedation? if it is very loose that may be possible?

I personally wouldn't want a 14 year old dog under anaesthetic for an hour. Unless the plaque is causing toothache and your dog is off his food etc, I would leave it. However, if there are a few teeth giving problems, I would opt to have those teeth taken out - it doesn't take long to pull a few teeth out. A friend of mine has an old Yorkie and he had to have 8 teeth out. He is fine and simply has softer food.
Hope your little man gets sorted.

If the plaque goes under the gums and there is infection, the teeth should not just be extracted as it can leave infection in the gums.

When my Little One had to have a number of teeth extracted under a GA she had a full blood work-up, chest X-ray and heart ultrasound before the Vet would consider giving her the GA. And he carefully removed all the plaque not just on her teeth but below the gumline before extracting any of them.

It just meant careful monitoring of her during the time she was under anaesthesia, and I was sitting their with her so that if the Vet nurse had to leave the room I could keep a watch over the dials.

She had already lost the four top front teeth but he had to extract another ten, and except for having to soak her kibble for the first day she was back to crunch crunch crunch the following day.

If anesthesia is properly administered and montiored that shouldn't be an issue. At 14 I would recommned a throrough workup prior to anesthesia, labwork, chest xrays, etc. I work at a veterinary dental referrall hospital and we routinely do several hour long procedures on elderly or high risk pets. We test and we monitor and our patients wake up well and feel better after having their painful mouths tended to.