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Client guide · Symptoms and triage
My pet has bad breath
what the smell is trying to tell you
"That's just dog breath." We have all heard it so often that we ended up believing it. But a healthy dog and a healthy cat do not have breath that makes you pull back: when it really smells, there is a reason, and most of the time that reason hurts. This page helps you work out what the smell points to, what you can check tonight, and how fast this needs looking at. What it will never offer you: a product to cover the smell up.
This guide helps you triage; it does not replace an exam by your veterinarian. Most of each tooth is hidden below the gum line, and a smell cannot be diagnosed at a distance. When in doubt, call us at 514 223-1197.
Go now: the signs that cannot wait
Bad breath on its own is not an emergency: it needs an appointment, not a race. What follows does. Any single one of these is enough. You do not have to tick several, and you do not have to decide which is worst. Do not wait to "see if it passes", do not wait for morning: go to the clinic or to the nearest emergency centre, and call on the way so we can expect you.
- His face has swollen, and his eye looks pushed forward, or the swelling is growing by the hour, or he has a fever, or he is flat, or he can no longer open his mouth.
- His mouth is bleeding and it will not stop, or he is swallowing blood, or there is fresh blood in quantity in his saliva, in his water bowl, or on his bedding.
- He can no longer close his mouth, or open it, or his jaw is hanging. He cries out when anyone reaches for his head. Do not force anything, do not try to check: leave.
- He has stopped eating or drinking. In cats, never let anorexia set in: call before 24 to 48 hours without eating, and sooner still if he is overweight or already ill. You do not have to wait until you get there. With a puppy or a kitten, we call today, without counting hours.
- A thread, a string, a ribbon, dental floss or an elastic is hanging from his mouth or from his anus: NEVER PULL, not even gently, not even if it seems to be coming out on its own, and do not cut anything. Leave exactly as is.
- Something is stuck in his mouth: a stick or a bone wedged across the roof of the mouth, a fragment caught between two teeth. He is pawing at his mouth, gagging, drooling in strings. We look, we do not dig: if the object is not perfectly visible and grippable on the first try, do not touch it and leave with him.
- He has chewed a button battery, a detergent pod, a household cleaner, a drain opener or another corrosive product. Do not make him vomit, do not give him anything to swallow on your own initiative, and bring the packaging.
- His breath smells oddly sweet, fruity, or like nail polish remover, and he is also flat, vomiting, drinking heavily or breathing fast. If he is diabetic and on insulin: do not inject the dose if he has not eaten or has eaten less than half his usual portion, because an injection on an empty stomach can cause severe hypoglycemia. Call us before the next injection, even if it is due in an hour, and do not decide on your own to give the dose or to skip it: if we are closed, call a 24/7 emergency centre that same evening.
- He is breathing badly: fast while lying quietly, with his belly heaving on every breath, or noisily. A cat breathing open-mouthed is an emergency in itself, cats do not pant like dogs. Pale, grey or bluish gums confirm the emergency, but they are a late sign: do not wait to see them before you leave.
- He is very flat, cold to the touch, unsteady, collapsing or seizing. Or yellow is showing on his gums, on the whites of his eyes, or inside his ears.
One clarification, and it takes nothing away from the list above: a lump under an eye, on a cheek, on a lip or under the jaw, that appeared in a day or two, in a pet who is otherwise entirely himself, is not on this list. It is not an immediate departure, it is a same-day appointment: call us and we will give you a time. If any one of the signs above joins it, the list wins.
One is enough
You do not have to work out which of these signs matters most. If one of them sounds like your pet, leave. If you are unsure, call anyway: triage is our job, not yours. Outside our hours a 24/7 emergency centre answers, and there is never a wrong reason to call.
If something is blocking his throat or the roof of his mouth
The first steps, and the rule "we look, we do not dig", are in our guide: My pet is choking.
If he swallowed a product
Do not make him vomit, and call before doing anything else. Our two emergency pages: Toxic foods and plants and The emergency page.
None of that sounds like your pet? Good, and that is the usual case. The rest of this page is written for you, and it starts with the sentence nobody says loudly enough.
There is no such thing as "dog breath"
Let us start here, because this is the belief that stops almost everyone from calling. A healthy dog and a healthy cat do not have fresh breath, nobody is claiming otherwise: they have neutral breath. Breath you do not notice. If you turn your head away when your pet comes to say hello, that is not a feature of the species. That is information.
This is not a cleanliness problem
That is the second belief, and it holds on harder than the first. Strong breath does not mean the mouth is dirty: it means bacteria are living somewhere on tissue that is inflamed, damaged or infected, and producing sulfur compounds as they go. What you are smelling is what infection smells like. That is why nothing poured into the water bowl settles this: there is nothing to wash, there is something to treat.
Silent. Not painless.
That is the line our dentistry page carries, and it is worth repeating here: dental disease is silent, it is not painless. Animals mask discomfort by instinct, cats even more than dogs. They keep eating, keep playing and keep meeting you at the door with a mouth that, in a person, would justify time off work. So do not go looking for proof that he is in pain before you call: that proof arrives late, and often it never arrives at all.
Eating is not proof of comfort
This is the argument we hear most on the phone: "he eats really well, so it cannot be serious." An animal has to eat. He will eat with a painful mouth, he will learn to chew on one side, he will swallow kibble whole, he will switch to soft food, and nobody will see a thing. A good appetite says nothing about the comfort of his mouth. It only says he is hungry.
Nobody told you this was a symptom
And that is true. "It's just dog breath" is something everyone has heard, often from a well-meaning professional, and it has been circulating for decades. You have just questioned it, you are here looking things up, and that is exactly the right move. Nobody here is going to hold it against you that you believed what everyone repeats.
The full list of signs we ask you to watch for is on our dentistry page; breath is only one of them.
What not to do first
Do not start with a product that removes the smell. A breath spray, a water additive, a scented treat: these can genuinely dampen the odor. That is precisely the problem. The smell is the only signal you were given, and it is a very good one, it arrived long before your pet showed you anything. Removing it without knowing what produced it is pulling the battery out of the smoke alarm because it is making noise. Some of these products are genuinely useful, once the mouth has been examined, as prevention. We come back to them further down. But their place is after the appointment, never instead of it.
The speed changes, calling does not
The red block at the top of this page says what means leaving right now. For everything else, between "leave now" and "this can be planned" there is no watch-and-wait zone once breath has changed. What changes from one case to the next is the speed, never whether you call.
What does not get left to run
The smell changed quickly; it clearly comes from one side; there is blood somewhere; he chews on one side, drops food or drools; you can see a lump, a broken tooth, a tooth that moves; it is a cat whose breath is frankly bad; or his water, his litter box or his weight changed at the same time.
What can be planned, and still gets booked now
The smell has been building slowly over months, nothing else has changed, he eats normally. This is not an emergency, and it is not a file you get to close either. What is happening in his mouth is not waiting until you are free.
Either way, the date is set during the call, not by closing this page.
Not sure which speed you are in? Describe the smell to us on the phone, and we will sort it out with you.
514 223-1197Give no home medications
You have just learned that he is probably in pain, and has been for a long time. The first reflex, at this exact minute, is to go looking for something "to ease him until the appointment". That is why this section sits here, and not at the bottom of the page: what is in your medicine cabinet is made for humans, and two of the most ordinary products in it kill.
Acetaminophen (Tylenol)
Fatal to cats, even a single tablet. There is no safe dose. If your cat swallowed any, it is an immediate emergency. In dogs, it damages the liver.
Ibuprofen (Advil), naproxen (Aleve), aspirin
Toxic: digestive ulcers, kidney damage. Never a human anti-inflammatory, for any reason, in dogs or in cats. Cats are more sensitive to them than dogs, and that is not a matter of using a smaller dose.
Leftover prescriptions, and the other pet's painkiller
Same apparent problem, same weight, same household: none of that is ever enough. What relieves a dog can kill a cat, and a dose calculated for another patient is not a dose. A veterinary anti-inflammatory given blind also complicates the anesthesia at the appointment.
Gels and ointments "for the gums"
The ones made for people are designed to be spat out, and an animal swallows them. Some contain local anesthetics that are dangerous when swallowed in quantity. There is no home version of what is happening below the gum line.
An antibiotic left over from another episode
It will not fix a diseased tooth, because the problem is mechanical before it is infectious: as long as the tartar below the gum and the affected tooth are there, the infection comes back. And a treatment started blind blurs the exam at the exact moment we need it clearest.
Nothing by mouth, and here is the real reason
It is not that everything is poison. It is that the time and the place are wrong. Easing the pain of a mouth is a genuine priority, and it is a clinic decision: it gets made once we know what we are treating, and once we know what shape his kidneys and liver are in. An animal quietly "relieved" in the dark is a cause that keeps advancing while everyone feels better.
What the smell tells you, and where it sends you
Right now you have exactly one piece of information, and it is the smell itself. It is worth more than you think: it does not give a diagnosis, but it tells us which direction to look in, and sometimes it tells us the mouth is not involved at all.
First: is it really coming from his mouth?
That is the first question, and almost nobody asks it. Do the two-place test once, calmly.
- Get close while he yawns or pants, and smell near his mouth.
- Then smell elsewhere: his ears, the folds around his lips, the skin of his neck, his paws, his rear end.
If the smell is just as strong away from the mouth, it probably is not coming from the mouth. Note which of the two answered you, and tell us: it completely changes what we look at first.
Only bring your face close if he is relaxed and comes to you on his own. An animal whose mouth hurts can bite without warning, and you do not need to get close to be useful to us: knowing which end of him smells strongest is enough.
The four smells, and where each one sends you
It smells rotten, like carrion, like something spoiled, and often worse on one side than the other
This is by far the most common, and it points at the mouth: an infected gum, a diseased tooth, a wound, a mass. Destination: an appointment, at the speed the previous section describes.
It smells sweet, fruity, or like nail polish remover
That one does not come from the mouth: it is a body that cannot use its own sugar, so it burns fat instead and makes acidic waste products, ketones. It goes with diabetes that is starting to slip. What matters is the company it keeps: drinking a lot, urinating a lot, losing weight while eating well, being flat, vomiting. Destination: if any of those is present, or if your pet is already diabetic, this is the red block at the top of the page. Otherwise call today: bloodwork and a urine sample answer the question.
It smells of ammonia, of urine, or like the bottom of an old litter box
This one points at the kidneys: when they no longer filter enough, waste builds up and some of it comes back out through the mouth, often alongside ulcers on the gums and tongue. The usual companions: drinking more, urinating more, losing weight, a dull coat, nausea. Destination: bloodwork and a urine sample, without letting it run, and sooner still if he is vomiting, off his food or getting weak. One honest note: this smell rarely shows up early in kidney disease. That is a reason to run the tests now, not to wait for more.
It smells fishy, of skunk, or strong in a way that seems to come from everywhere
In dogs, the answer is often not at the front end: a small anal gland discharge he then licked, an infected ear, a damp, macerated lip fold. Destination: read the dog section below, and note what the two-place test told you.
Finding the source on a dog with heavy lips
Dogs with heavy, folded lips, cocker spaniels, bulldogs, boxers, Saint Bernards, spaniels generally, can develop an infection in the damp fold under the lip. The smell is strong, it sits right beside the mouth, and almost everyone concludes "bad breath". Gently lift the fold and look at the skin inside it: red, damp, sticky skin is a completely different lead, and it is treated a completely different way.
Slowly, or all at once?
This question is worth almost as much as the smell itself.
All at once, over a few days
Something new has happened: a tooth broken on a bone or a hard toy, an object wedged somewhere, an ulcer, a mass that has started to break down. An appointment without delay, and faster still if there is blood or if he is eating differently.
Slowly, over months
That is the usual picture of gum disease. There is no rush measured in hours; there are, on the other hand, months of discomfort behind it, and those do not get made up.
Worked out which smell is yours? Tell us on the phone, in your own words. That is real clinical information.
514 223-1197In cats, it is almost never "just tartar"
This is the part of the page not to skip, even if your cat looks perfectly fine. In dogs, the tartar you can see at least gives you a hint. In cats, not even that. A cat can have unbearable breath with teeth that look clean, and a cat covered in tartar can be hurting somewhere else entirely. That is why we do not conclude anything by lifting a lip, in cats least of all.
A mouth inflamed deep down
In some cats the tooth is not the problem: the whole lining of the mouth becomes inflamed, severely and very painfully. The back of the mouth, where the jaws meet, turns bright red, swollen, almost raw. The name for it is gingivostomatitis.
What you might notice: he cries or pulls back when he yawns; he comes to the bowl, sniffs, and walks away; he swallows kibble without chewing, or will only take soft food now; he drools, sometimes with a pink tinge; he grooms less and his coat mats over his back and rear; he ducks away when you touch his head. And the clue that counts most: the inflammation is out of all proportion to the little you can see on his teeth.
Two things worth knowing, and they save months. First: brushing does not fix this, and a cat in that state will not let you brush him anyway. That is not stubbornness, that is pain. Second: in many of these cats, what works best is removing the teeth the inflammation is holding on to. Those extractions are done here, under anesthesia, with the dental X-rays and the nerve blocks that go with them.
We know that is a hard thing to hear. What we see afterwards is much easier: most of these cats start eating again, groom themselves again and become sociable, often more than they were before. Some of them keep an inflammation that needs medical treatment afterwards, and we tell you that beforehand, not after.
In these cats, viral status is checked when it matters, because feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency change how we read the file. The rapid test is run here, in our own laboratory, on a simple blood draw. It is not automatic: it is a decision we make with you, based on how your cat lives and what we are trying to understand. FeLV and FIV testing.
Lesions that hollow out the tooth
This is one of the most common dental problems in adult cats, and the quietest. The tooth starts being eaten away from within, usually right at the gum line. The name for it is tooth resorption.
What it looks like, when it shows at all: a small bright red spot at the base of a tooth, a ridge of gum that seems to be climbing onto the tooth, or a tooth that looks like it is disappearing under the gum. The most characteristic sign is not visual: when the lesion is touched, the cat's jaw starts to chatter, a fast little tremor.
The important part for you: a good share of these lesions cannot be seen from the outside at all. They sit below the gum, and only a dental X-ray finds them. A cat with strong breath and reasonable-looking teeth is exactly the cat we go looking for this in. And he will keep eating right through it.
The kidneys
In an aging cat, breath that starts smelling of ammonia or urine is a signal that deserves bloodwork and a urine sample without delay. Ulcers often form in the mouth, which makes the breath worse still and makes eating painful.
What you can check tonight, and it helps us a great deal: are you filling the water bowl more often than you used to? Are the litter clumps bigger or more numerous? Has he thinned without your noticing? Has his coat gone dull or spiky? Those four answers are worth a paragraph of description.
A mass in the mouth
It has to be named, because this is the one where weeks count. In cats, the most common oral tumor is a squamous cell carcinoma, and it grows mainly on the gum and under the tongue, the easiest place in the mouth to miss. Early on it looks like ordinary dental disease: our own factsheet says so, and that is why the diagnosis so often comes late.
It is not the most common cause of bad breath in cats, nowhere near. If we name it anyway, it is because its warning signal is such an ordinary one: breath that gets worse fast, blood appearing, a tooth starting to move with no tartar around it, a lump on the gum, a cat losing weight while keeping his appetite. Faced with that picture we look now rather than in a few months.
And also
A cat with a cold
Some feline respiratory viruses cause ulcers on the tongue and gums that hurt badly and smell bad. A cat with a runny nose, sneezing, drooling and off his food does not have "just a cold".
A thread under the tongue
A thread, a string or an elastic can wrap around the base of the tongue and stay caught there. It is an emergency, it is in the red block at the top of the page, and the rule is absolute: we never pull.
A diabetic cat
Sweet breath, and everything that goes with it, is covered in the previous section and in the red block.
A yellow cat
If yellow appears on his gums, on the whites of his eyes or inside his ears, the question is no longer his breath: that is the red block at the top of this page, and it points at the liver.
The two observations worth the most
Watch him eat: is he chewing, or swallowing whole? And look at his coat: a cat who stops washing himself is very often a cat who hurts somewhere. Those two answers are worth more than anything you could try to see inside his mouth.
Strong breath in a cat means an appointment, even if his mouth looks fine.
Book an appointment (opens in a new tab)In dogs, what hides behind the same smell
In dogs, gum disease explains the great majority of strong breath, and that is rather good news: it is the one we know how to treat. But three other things hide behind exactly the same smell, and two of them do not wait.
Gum disease, the most common answer
Most dogs and cats already show signs of dental disease by around age three. It starts as a soft film on the tooth, plaque, which then hardens into tartar; the inflammation reaches the gum, then what holds the tooth in place. Our dentistry page shows what the different stages look like, with photographs of real gums, and explains what a dental procedure includes. We are not repeating that here: this page exists to help you decide whether to call.
A word about small breeds. In them the teeth are large relative to a narrow jaw: they overlap, they trap food, and disease sets in earlier and moves faster. A six-year-old Yorkshire, chihuahua, miniature poodle or shih tzu with strong breath is not a late case. It is a textbook one.
A mass in the mouth
This is the one not to miss, and it disguises itself as a dental problem. In dogs, the most common malignant oral tumor is melanoma, often pigmented but not always. When a mass starts breaking down at the surface it smells very bad, and the smell can arrive before you see anything at all.
What should make you look closer: a lump or a bud of tissue on the gum; one specific spot that bleeds, always the same one; a tooth that has become loose with almost no tartar around it; blood spots on toys, in the water bowl or on his bedding; a dog who has started chewing on one side; breath getting worse fast. Our factsheet on canine oral tumors puts it plainly: the first signs look like ordinary dental disease, and that is why the diagnosis is so often made late.
One thing worth knowing before the appointment: a mass in the mouth cannot be named by looking at it, and a simple needle sample is usually not enough either. It takes a biopsy to get the answer. That is not an extra step we tack on, it is the step that decides everything after it.
A broken tooth, and nobody saw it break
Very common, very under-recognized. A dog snaps the tip off a tooth on a bone, an antler, a dried hoof, a very hard nylon toy, a rock or an ice cube, and nobody hears a thing. The big upper tooth at the back of the cheek is the champion of this injury.
Look at the centre of the broken surface. A pink, red or dark brown dot in the middle means the inside of the tooth is open. From there, bacteria travel down toward the root, an abscess forms at the tip, and the bad breath sets in. The classic sign comes later: a small swelling, or a little draining hole, below the eye on the affected side. In a dog who is otherwise himself, that is a same-day appointment. It becomes an immediate departure if his eye looks pushed forward, if the swelling grows by the hour, if he has a fever, if he is flat, or if he can no longer open his mouth.
An open tooth does not close over on its own and it hurts constantly, including in the dog who goes on crunching without flinching. What we do about it depends on the tooth and on what the X-ray shows: that gets decided at the exam, not on the internet. In the meantime, take away the dried bones, antlers, hooves and very hard nylons; our brushing guide explains why.
When it is not the mouth
Four leads, all checkable tonight.
What he has been eating
A dog who eats stool, raids the bin or finds things outdoors will have appalling breath, in episodes. It is real, it is not greed, and it is handled differently. The tell: that smell comes and goes. A constant smell is not explained by yesterday's find.
The anal glands
A fishy smell after he has licked his rear end. If the smell becomes persistent, or if he is scooting and licking a lot, that is the end to look at.
The ears
An ear infection gives off a strong, sweetish smell that seems to come from the whole head. He scratches, he shakes his head, he holds it tilted to one side.
The nose
Discharge from one nostril only, with sneezing and a strong smell, is not a breath problem. In an older small dog, advanced dental disease around an upper canine can eventually open a passage into the nose. Always tell us about discharge from one side only.
Anal glands · Cleaning the ears
And the rest of the body
Three general causes, already described above by their smell: the kidneys, diabetes, and the liver. For the liver, the signal that counts is not the smell: it is yellow appearing on the gums, on the whites of the eyes or inside the ears, and that is an emergency.
The puppy
While the adult teeth are coming in, a puppy can have somewhat strong breath: the gums are working, the baby teeth are loosening, and it passes on its own. Two qualifications. One: when a baby tooth does not fall out and the adult tooth comes in beside it, two teeth share a space built for one, food packs in between them, and it smells. This is common in small breeds and it is easily sorted, often at the time of spaying or neutering. Two: a puppy with frankly foul breath, who is drooling, bleeding, or whose face is swollen, is not teething. Call.
A smell that changed fast, one side worse than the other, or blood: that is the appointment we do not let run. Call, and the date is set with you.
Book an appointment (opens in a new tab)What you can check tonight
None of what follows replaces the exam, and there is no test to fail here. These are the things we are going to ask you on the phone, and having them ready saves everyone time. Five minutes is enough.
1. The two-place test
Smell near his mouth while he yawns, then smell his ears, his lip folds, his skin and his rear end. Note which of the two answered you. It is the single most useful observation on this page, and nobody makes it. Only bring your face close if he is relaxed and comes to you on his own: an animal whose mouth hurts can bite without warning, and knowing which end of him smells strongest is already enough to be useful to us.
2. Lift the lip, on both sides
Calmly, while he is relaxed, without opening his mouth. Lift the upper lip on one side and look at the line where tooth meets gum: that is where everything starts. Then do the other side, and compare. The teeth to look at are the big ones at the back, on top, the ones the cheek covers. What you are looking for: a red line along the gum, a gum that has pulled back and exposed the root, a tooth that moves, a broken tooth, a lump, a spot that bleeds, or a clear difference between the two sides.
3. Watch him eat
One meal is enough. Does he drop pieces? Does he chew on one side, or tilt his head while eating? Does he swallow kibble whole? Does he come to the bowl, sniff, and leave? Has he started preferring soft food? Does he take a mouthful and carry it off to eat somewhere else, on the carpet? Every one of those is worth a line in his file.
4. Look for blood
It is almost always somewhere, and almost nobody looks for it. Check the drool while he sleeps, the chew toys, the rope, the water in the bowl, the bedding, and for a cat the litter box and the places he lies down. A pink tinge counts.
5. Note the pace
Since when? Did it change over a few days, or has it been building for months? You are the only person who can answer that, and the answer changes the speed.
6. Note the water, the litter box and the weight
Are you refilling the bowl more often? Are the clumps bigger or more numerous? Are you taking the dog out at night when you never needed to before? Has he lost weight? Those four questions swing the case from the mouth to the rest of the body, and that is an important switch.
We look, we do not dig
If he stiffens, turns his head away, backs off, growls or hisses: stop right there. Never try to open the mouth of an animal that is in pain yourself: you risk a bite, and seeing nothing would prove nothing at all. An animal who refuses to have his lip lifted has just given you an answer, and it is an answer worth an appointment.
A photo, with the lip lifted, dated
Two photos, one on each side, taken in daylight. They are not there so that anyone can diagnose at a distance, and nobody will offer to. They are there so you can compare in six months, and so you can show what you saw if it does not happen in front of us.
What not to do tonight
- Do not scrape the tartar off. Not with a fingernail, and not with one of the little scalers sold online. You remove the visible piece and leave the part that matters, below the gum; you scratch the enamel, which brings plaque back faster; and you risk wounding a gum that is already inflamed.
- Do not start brushing a mouth that hurts. A painful mouth needs treatment first. Brushing over the top of it teaches your pet to avoid the brush, and fixes nothing.
- No human toothpaste, ever: it may contain xylitol, which is toxic to dogs, and it is made to be spat out. No baking soda and no hydrogen peroxide either. Our brushing guide explains why, product by product.
- Do not mask the smell before you have the answer. It is the only signal you have.
- Do not wait for his next vaccine visit to mention it. If his appointment is seven months away, seven months is a long time for a mouth that hurts.
- And no human pain medication of any kind: that is section 3 of this page, and it is there for exactly this. No home medications.
Got your answers? Call us and give them in order: where the smell comes from, how long it has been there, and what you saw when you lifted the lip.
514 223-1197What only the exam can settle
Here is the part we would like to be able to spare you, and cannot. What you can see from the outside is the smallest part of the story, and that is not a figure of speech.
Most of each tooth is hidden
The largest part of every tooth sits below the gum line. That is where it is decided: the attachment holding the tooth, the bone around it, the tip of the root. No amount of looking, no light and no photograph reaches that area. It is the reason veterinary dentistry exists, and the reason it requires anesthesia.
What an awake exam already settles
A great deal, and it is often the only step you need in order to know where you are going. Awake, we can: find where the smell is coming from, mouth, nose, ears, skin or rear end; look at the visible crowns and the gum line on both sides; spot a visible mass, a broken tooth, a loose tooth; feel the face, the jaws and the lymph nodes under the throat; judge how much it hurts from how he reacts; and examine the rest of the animal, which is often where the answer actually is. That visit sorts out the majority of situations.
What an awake exam cannot settle
Three things, and they are not negotiable: probing every tooth to measure the pockets hidden under the gum; properly examining the back of the mouth and the underside of the tongue in an animal who is hurting; and seeing below the gum line. That last one takes full-mouth dental X-rays. They are part of our dental procedure, not an add-on. None of it happens on an awake animal, and not because he lacks goodwill: it hurts, and it does not hold still.
That is exactly why there is no home version, and no "quick" version, of this work. Our dentistry page details what a dental procedure includes, step by step, and why each step is there.
When blood and urine come before the mouth
If the smell is ammonia or sweet, if your pet is older, if he has lost weight, if he is drinking more than he used to or if he is vomiting, we start there. Some tests are run here, in our own laboratory, and the result sometimes comes back during the visit itself. Other samples go to an outside laboratory. How long it takes depends on the test and on where it goes: ask your veterinarian which of the two applies and how long to expect, that is the question to ask when the sample is taken. This is not one more step before we get to the teeth. It is often the step that changes the plan.
A mass is not named by looking at it
If we find a mass, the exam tells us where it is, how big it is and what it is touching. It does not tell us what it is. That takes a biopsy, under sedation or under anesthesia depending on the case. We take the sample here; the analysis under the microscope goes out to a reference laboratory, and that is what gives it a name.
Soft tissue surgery is part of what we do here, during our opening hours: wounds, bites, abscesses, drains, stitches, and removing a mass in or under the skin.
At that point we will tell you what happens here and what happens elsewhere: the exam, the blood, urine and biopsy sampling, the surgery and the follow-up are ours, and part of the analysis goes to an outside laboratory, as said above. Removing part of the jaw, radiation therapy and CT scans are not done here: they call for a specialty centre, and we point you to one. We will never describe as happening here something that does not.
Age is not a disease. The heart, on the other hand, changes the plan.
This is the real reason many people put it off, so let us answer it plainly. Age on its own rules nobody out: older animals are often the ones who benefit most, because they have been living with chronic pain the longest. What decides is not his date of birth, it is his exam and his blood panel, done about a week beforehand, never on the morning itself.
One thing does genuinely change the plan: a heart murmur or known heart disease. In that case we do not usually carry out a dental procedure, and it needs to be mentioned when you book so that the veterinarian can assess the situation and discuss the options with you. Our dental FAQ covers that point, along with anesthesia and recovery.
An oral exam is one visit, and it is what decides everything else.
Book an appointment (opens in a new tab) 514 223-1197Afterwards, and what brushing can and cannot do
This is the question that always comes next: "so what do I do to stop it coming back?" The answer is a good one, but it depends on an order you must not reverse.
What brushing really does
Brushing removes plaque, that soft bacterial film, before it mineralizes. It is the most useful thing you can do at home, and it works. Gingivitis, the inflammation of the gums, recedes markedly with good hygiene.
What brushing does not do
Three limits, and they need saying clearly, because the opposite gets repeated a great deal.
Tartar that has already formed can no longer be brushed away
Once mineralized it is hard as stone and bonded to the tooth. Only a professional scaling, under anesthesia, removes it, and that is the only moment when the area under the gum can be cleaned and the roots planed.
What has already been lost around the tooth does not come back
Once the attachment and the bone holding a tooth have been destroyed, a brush does not rebuild them. Brushing slows down what comes next; it does not rewind what is done. That is precisely why we do not wait.
Brushing does not clean below the gum line
That is what the cleaning under anesthesia is for, where the brush cannot reach.
The right order
A painful mouth needs treatment first. We deal with what hurts, remove the plaque, the tartar and any diseased teeth, and then brushing becomes easy and effective. In that order everything works. In the other order you teach your pet to avoid the brush and get nothing.
And if he never accepts the brush?
That is not a failure, and there are proven alternatives: certain dental chews, dental diets and water additives carrying the VOHC seal, granted only to products whose effect on plaque or tartar has been shown. Ask us which ones. They are real help as prevention, after the appointment, never instead of it. And avoid dried or cooked bones, cow hooves, antlers and very hard nylons: they break teeth.
The smell will come back a little, and that is normal
Plaque starts forming again in less than a day, in him as in you. Some animals build it faster than others and need closer follow-up: small breeds, flat-faced breeds, and cats who have already had an inflamed mouth. A mouth put right and then left alone goes back where it was. That is why we look in the mouth at every health exam, and why bad breath is one of the reasons we ask you to come in before the scheduled date.
What is not a solution
Anesthesia-free scaling, sometimes offered by a groomer or a "pet dental hygiene" service, replaces nothing. It cannot clean below the gum line, it cannot take X-rays, the disease keeps progressing under the surface, and in Quebec scaling a pet's teeth is an act reserved to veterinarians. What it takes away is the visible tartar, meaning the smell and the reason for your visit, not the disease.
Once the mouth is back in shape, ask us to show you how to brush on your own pet. Brushing your pet's teeth.
Book an appointment (opens in a new tab)What people ask us
Ten questions, ordered by what you need first rather than by theme. The eighth is the one nobody asks on the phone.
Isn't that just dog breath? All dogs smell.
Is this urgent, or can it wait?
Can I fix this by brushing his teeth?
What about dental chews, water additives and breath sprays?
My cat's breath is appalling but his teeth look clean. So what is it?
His breath smells of ammonia, or of urine. What does that mean?
His breath smells sweet, or like nail polish remover. What does that mean?
It has smelled for years. Has he been in pain that whole time?
My pet is old. Can he still be anesthetized?
Can the tartar be removed without anesthesia?
Also worth reading
Honest triage, in one sentence
Strong breath is not a personality trait, it is a symptom, and it is nearly always a symptom of something hurting quietly. You do not have to know what: you only have to tell us where the smell comes from, how long it has been there, and what you saw when you lifted his lip. We will take it from there.
Has your pet's breath changed?
Describe what you are smelling, in your own words. We will tell you whether this is today or something to plan, and the date is set during the call. You do not have to make that call alone.