Basil is a 14 year old, male Parson Russell Terrier.
With his increasingly bad breath and noted poor dental health, the decision was made to undergo a general anaesthetic in order to extract the severely affected teeth and to scale and polish the rest.
Due to Basil’s age the anaesthetic risk was increased, but he was perfectly healthy in every other way, so the limiting factor in his overall quality of life was his teeth.
In order to minimise the risk we did a full clinical examination to check his heart and general health. We then took a blood test to check all his organs and all the cells comprising his blood and immune system.
Basils blood test came back all normal, so we went ahead with his general anaesthetic and dental treatment. He had 17 teeth removed (a full adult dog set is 42 teeth), and the rest were cleaned and polished.
Basil then went home with some pain relief the same day for some TLC, and within 24 hours was back to bouncing around very very happy!
The vet checked him 1 week later and you wouldn’t even know he had had teeth removed, all the gums healed beautifully.
Basil’s owner said the following: “I think there’s a lot of ignorance surrounding older animals so hopefully your clients will see Basil’s story and get on board. Basil’s recent experience proves that older dogs can thrive after surgery; he’s like a new dog!”
