HERE at the vets I find that dog breeds are like buses – you do not see any for ages and then two come along at once.

In my morning surgery today the aforementioned “buses” were Norfolk terriers: I saw two in a row, both very friendly and sweet, one that was coming in for dental work and one that was having a check up, after having had dental work last week.

I would not say that Norfolks are particularly prone to dental problems – I just happened to see two within ten minutes of each other. Most dogs will get some degree of dental disease in their lifetime. This disease will range from a slight build up of plaque and sore gums, right through to rotten teeth and sometimes abscesses.

Almost every day we will have at least one dog or cat in for a general anaesthetic and dental. As you can imagine we always have to anaesthetise animals to do dental work as even the best behaved pet is not going to stay still on their own. We use the same sort of tools that human dentists do, we can scale and polish teeth and remove any diseased, damaged or wobbly teeth.

But just as we use the same techniques as human dentists so we give the same advice – prevention is better than cure – the best way to prevent dental disease in animals is to brush their teeth.

Regular brushing is the single best way to avoid your pet having dental work in later life.