The best place to start is with a visit to your regular veterinarian for a good oral exam. From there your veterinarian can recommend when it's time for a dental cleaning. There are Board certified veterinary dentists available who in addition to earning a doctor of veterinary medicine degree, have completed a residency in
veterinary dentistry and
successfully completed a certification examination. Your regular veterinarian can provide routine dental care and cleaning whereas Board certified dentists are available for bigger dental problems.
A proper dental cleaning should be performed under general anesthesia. I know that people get nervous about anesthesia and while there are always risks with anesthesia a proper pre-anesthesia workup can help determine the risk and aid in the decision whether or not to perform a
dental procedure. These tests will determine the function the liver, kidneys, heart and lungs, which are
necessary to help the body safely handle anesthesia. I recommend at the very least blood work (complete blood count, chemistry profile and urinalysis) prior to any anesthetic event. In older animals or animals with heart murmurs I recommend chest x-rays and echocardiograms.
I do not recommend non-professional dental scaling without anesthesia and neither does the American Veterinary Dental College. Here is AVDC's view on the matter http://www.avdc.org/dentalscaling.html.
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