I started working on today’s book review (of “Cheesecake Extraordinaire”) about ten minutes ago. Then I got the phone call from the vet’s office, and I think now I’m going to put it off until tomorrow.
You see, it was finally time for our cats to get their teeth cleaned. For cats, this means putting them under anaesthesia–it isn’t a small undertaking, and it’s expensive. However, if you don’t do it they can develop a nasty bacteria buildup which can get into their bloodstream and make them sick–even eventually kill them–so it’s extremely important to have it done now and then.
When cats get enough tartar built up on their teeth the vets don’t really know ahead of time what they’ll find under there. They put a range into the estimate to cover any teeth they may have to pull, but of course you hope they won’t have to pull any.
I know I’ve mentioned we have two cats, Selene and Cahlash, sister and brother from the same litter. Cahlash had to have to small teeth pulled; that isn’t too bad.
Selene had to have NINE teeth pulled.
We’re talking about a very small cat here, about 7 pounds in total. The vet said that left her with pretty much her front teeth and her incisors. She’s going to be on pain meds and antibiotics for a couple of weeks–and of course medicating her is going to be quite an undertaking (even the vets have trouble medicating her–for such a tiny ball of fluff she’s incredibly strong-willed, and when she doesn’t want something done she does NOT want something done).
We can pick her up in a few hours; the vet wants to give her another pain injection before she comes home. All I can think of is how miserable she’s going to be.
So yeah, if you care about your cats at all, get their teeth cleaned the moment your vets say it’s an issue. I hate to think what it would have been like if she’d had to have even more teeth pulled.
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