At Country Creek Animal Hospital, if your pet is diagnosed with a major dental issue, we can usually perform the treatments here ourselves with the exception of a root canal. We can refer pets to local veterinarians that specialize/limit their practice to dentistry/oral surgery for such procedures. If a client is not wanting to go as far as a root canal or have restoration performed on a tooth, then we can almost certainly perform any other treatments your pet may need.
Extractions in pets can sometimes be very straight forward and simple and other times be very labor intensive and require specialized equipment to perform them. Many people do not know that a fair number of cat and dog teeth are multi-rooted and (when extraction is required) cannot simply be “pulled” out. Doing so is potentially dangerous and may cause an increased risk of leaving fragments of the roots behind if you did. We actually have to create a surgical flap in the gingiva, delicately drill away some of the bone to better expose the roots, then section the roots, extract the roots individually, smooth out the bone that remains, flush out the area where the tooth once was, possibly fill that with a synthetic bone graft material, re-x-ray the area to make certain that the entire tooth has been extracted, then delicately suture the area closed. That is how we safely extract a multi-rooted tooth to provide for the best outcome for your pet.
Other procedures that can be performed would be removal of any excessive gingival tissue (gingivectomy), placement of local antibiotic for deep pockets where extraction is not elected or warranted (Doxirobe® or ClindOral®) and application of a plaque prevention gel that lasts up to six months (Sanos® sealant).