Should I Stay or Should I Go; Decision Making in Small Animal Dentistry

Should I extract this tooth? As a general practitioner and veterinary dentist, this is the most commonly asked dental question.
The majority of veterinarians have three important tools available to them to help make this decisions. Tool One: Intraoral dental radiographs. Sometimes one radiograph is sufficient, sometimes a multiple radiographs from multiple angles are needed. Sometimes we need to radiograph the other side for comparison. Tool Two: The Dental Probe. We need to measure pocket depths around the tooth so that we don't miss an important finding not evident on a 2-dimensional radiograph. Tool Three: Your eyes & hands. (Preferably with magnification and light.) What do you see? Are you taking a biopsy? Take a photo first and save that in the chart! Is the tooth mobile? Is there a draining tract? Does the jaw feel swollen?

We will spend this hour reviewing cases, discussing the findings from the anesthetized oral exam, the intraoral dental radiographs, and measurements from probing around the teeth. We will put all those findings together to help us answer the big question: should this tooth stay or should it go?