To the Heart of the Matter

To me this is the saddest of cases!

A very nice man brought his 8 year old, female spayed, King Charles Spaniel to our practice. The history was that he previously lost a King Charles to cardiac issues, a problem that commonly effects this breed.  That experienced devastated him and he vowed to do everything in his power to avoid cardiac issues in this next dog if at all possible.

We had been providing care for this dog for a number of years and early on the veterinarian heard an innocent systolic click when listening to the heart.  It was mentioned and this client  sought a cardiac consult and an echocardiogram immediately and spend upwards of $400 on that evaluation annually by a cardiologist.  All was well.  He wanted the best for his baby and he went to any lengths to provide that.

We recommended dentistry for his dog and this brought up a whole host of fears about anesthesia. He was afraid he may lose his dog.  We tried to assure him that with frequent professional care, we could provide the shortest and ultimately safest anesthetic experiences for his sweet baby.  We showed him how we have state-of-the-art monitors and that we have a dedicated anesthetist for the procedure.

He said he would consider this carefully.  

What he did, in an attempt to safe guard his beloved was to seek a second opinion.  He went to another practice.  They witnessed his concern and they offered to provide anesthesia-free dentistry and told him that that would be ultimately safest.  He provided this level of care for his dog twice.  The second time, they told him that they got most of the work done but that Nala was not allowing all of it.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago.  This client came in for his annual exam.  He related to our veterinarian that his baby was dropping food and was eating very carefully.  This very compliant, gentle dog allowed us to show him that there were multiple mobile teeth and that his baby needed to have a deep cleaning and full mouth radiographs.  

Once we anesthetized this patient and obtained a full set of diagnostic X-rays, we identified 27 teeth that we needed to be extracted because of either greater than 50% bone loss or tooth root abscessation.  This man was horrified.  The work was provided and the pet is doing wonderfully.

What breaks my heart is that this man wanted the best for his dog.  He was not stingy with his money in relation to this dog.  He was misled that providing anesthesia-free dentistry would provide the same care for the dog as we would provide with the aid and expense of anesthesia.  In the long run, this King Charles Spaniel experienced long term periodontal infection and we know that that can negatively affect the heart...the organ he was so worried about in the first place.