£250 to clean teeth?

[LoftDweller]

I've just been told this is the minimum I'll pay to have my small mongrel's teeth cleaned. It'll go up to £350 if she needs any extractions. Does this sound like a lot?

Just found the estimate for my large dog from 6 months ago, it was £240 and he didn't need any extractions so I think that was the actual price.

My vet charges according to size of dog and treatment required, my dog is older and had extra fluids. We are up North.

my local vets 4 pets are doing teeth cleaning just now for £99 - course it will cost more in extractions are needed - my mum paid 200 at the beginning of this year for the teeth cleaning plus teeth out

It would be cheaper where I work but, like every vet practice I have worked in, we undercharge massively for dental work because there is such price resistance to it. I believe there is as much time and at least as much skill in a properly performed scale and polish, probing and charting procedure as there is in the average lipoma removal but clients who wouldn't turn a hair at £250 for the latter are reluctant to pay the same for the former.
Perhaps because people think of it like going to their own dentist, forgetting that if they failed to brush their teeth properly or at all for several years and waited till there was visible tartar and gum disease, then happened to need a general anaesthetic (which is closely monitored by a trained nurse) for some reason to get the procedure done, they'd be paying a wee shade more 🙂

One of mine, small dog, had clean & a few extractions last year. It cost £280. So this year when a new vet opened locally & was advertising dentals for £99 I took my other little one, same breed, along for it.
After, when I collected him, I was presented with a bill for £395 instead of the £99 advertised as he'd needed two extractions. I'm in the north too.

Why are ddogs needing teeth cleaning and extractions!!

Horrified. Spend the money on proper diet for your best friend! Then your dddogs breath wont stinj and it wont get all the other ailments that death breath comes from

It's not just about diet, it's about conformation of the mouth.
If the teeth don't align properly or the mouth is too small then it can cause dental disease which wouldn't be related to diet as such.
Also eating things like bones (or stones in my dogs case!) can chip teeth and expose the nerves leading to an extraction being needed.

This is why we see lots of the small breeds or breeds with narrow faces with horrific teeth more so than say your average lab.

Yes diet is important but if you own a dog prone to dental disease chances are it will need dental treatment at some point, just as most people will at some point need to see a dentist despite brushing teeth!

How much does it cost for a human to go privately for a general anaethestic and a couple of extractions of multi-rooted teeth, I wonder?

We're not talking about that though. I've ddogs with under/over bites and some very strange conformations sadly amd yes no doubt they will suffer as a result.
There should be no need to be cleaning ddogs teeth that dont have specific dental issues structurally.
I was talking about bones in food not the massive shins of a cow etc. But eating raw small bones daily that naturally clean the teeth

I think you need to shop around ...there are good and reasonable priced vets out there.
My vet told me to pick the thick plaque off my cats teeth ....so I have done every so often - not sure if cats are easier than dogs?
He told me that when I asked if she needed a teeth clean when she was 8 ish and had plaque build up.
Now at 14 she does need dental work. I pointed out what had been a nasty broken sore looking tooth I spotted a week before she was due in for her vaccinations/health check - by then it looked much better. Apparently its a 'neck lesion' - a kind of broken tooth that the gum grows over. The vet said it seemed to be a natural protective process, to leave it as it had almost healed over as it wasn't causing her any difficulty, seemingly pain - still eats crunchies etc. And to get her teeth cleaned when it had fully healed over. No idea of cost yet.
However when I googled it when I got home a couple of sites said how painful it was for them etc and they needed it dealt with straight away It made me wonder if they have an ulterior motive...

Um - sometimes you can flick off large chunks of calculus, but in no way does it replace a thorough descale under anaesthesia - you can't even fully assess a cats mouth until they're under GA.

Neck lesion is a fairly outdated term as well, the current term is tooth resorption lesion (some people still call them feline odontoclastic resorption lesions

Oop the cat pressed send too soon!

Anyway, FORL is a misnomer term as well. But whatever you call them - they are painful lesions. Animals will keep eating apparently fine with dental disease/trauma that would have us posting on here asking if it justified an A&E visit. On more that one occasion I have actually pulled a loose tooth out with my fingers, and the animal was still "eating fine". Often with a TR lesion you'll notice a difference in tartar build up in different areas of the mouth - the animal is avoiding putting pressure on it when they bite down.

Anyway - veterinary dentistry is an emerging field still in many ways, I graduated only 10 years ago and my dental training was minimal, vets older than me would have had even less and their approach will depend on their interest and opinion. Also, cat dentistry in particular can be very fiddly work, removing a tooth affected by a TR lesion is rarely straightforward as they are brittle and often snap/crumble and you have to go fishing for root remnants - some vets simply do not like doing them, and will avoid them. I don't really like doing them at all, they can be frustrating fiddly procedures, but they need doing, all too often!

My cat has just had her teeth cleaned plus 2 extractions. It cost £390. She also had TR lesions and is 8 years old. It is a lot of money, and I did query it, but you can see the expertise and care that goes into it.

Companion care/ vets for pets have a offer on £99 for teeth cleaning. Might be worth checking your local one.

Phoenix -when I say my vet - I mean practice - so more than one vet. The latest one did call it something else ...but then said neck lesion - that's the term I remembered. And they know my cat.
My cat is a rescue cat and had a bad start in life - even though I've had her from being a kitten but she is still a nervous cat. Not a friendly cat . Doesn't like strangers. She had a major operation a couple of years ago (gut obstruction) and they were going to keep her in overnight but she was so distressed in the cage that they called me in to take her home, I had to take her back for checks over the next few days.
Hence me not wanting her to have more operations than necessary.
She will be booked in for a full dental in the new year ...and I am hoping that will see out her days. (If she needs another one when she is very old I will consider whether it is in her best interest to be put through that again)
And I know my cat pretty well - it was bothering her (I could tell there was something wrong - the reason I looked at her teeth) but I really don't think it is now...she's back to normal.