“Does my cat really need a $500 teeth cleaning?”
No.
And if you have to ask, I have a bridge to sell you.
Does commercial food (like Friskies) use all “human grade” ingredients in its food, and if not, why not? (I don’t pretend to know much about this myself, just parroting my sister and her use of “human grade.”) She claims that pet foods can contain ingredients (that would not be “up to snuff” for humans) in pet food. Is this true, or not? And if you claim it’s not true (and indeed these commercial pet food products contain “human grade” ingredients), could you provide a few (unbiased) cites, please?
This is true enough. That’s why it was good for my sister’s vet to recommend recipes—so the cats would get proper nutrition.
Let me ask your opinion: which do you think is better for a cat—a home-cooked diet from a vet-approved recipe, or Friskies? Or do you think that there is no difference?
…I’m afraid I’m not quite getting you. Are you really suggesting that it’s such a difficult thing to dig up the recommended nutritional requirements for a cat or dog? And the corresponding nutritional information on various meats and organ meats? My father is a veterinarian, and I’ve got my own small library of veterinary texts sitting about six feet to the left of me, so I’m a little ahead of the game, but about thirty seconds of poking around google will bring them up.
Stretch your credulity as far as you like, but until I see any evidence of an obligate carnivore voluntarily nibbling those little bits of gluten out of each corn kernel to satisfy its nutritional needs, I really don’t grasp the insistence that I need to feed it to my own pets. There’s a vast difference between “able to survive on” and what they’re evolved to eat.
A few % != an amount approaching half or more of the volume of their diet, as is provided in many, if not most processed pet foods.
:dubious:
I almost never see cats of normal, healthy cat weight. My pets are sleek and fit, with muscle definition appropriate to their physique. Very nearly all cats I meet fall somewhere in a range between “fat” and “grotesquely obese”. I also almost never see really fit dogs, the dogs–and there are a lot of them–in my neighborhood, at the dog park, and at the vet’s office are almost always fat, to one extent or another. Even the thinish and muscular working kibble fed dogs I know in my Schutzhund group still have a layer of fat under their skin. You’ll be hard put to convince me that this is due to anything but a high load of carbs being fed to these carnivores. My husband had no experience with raw fed dogs, and he was constantly remarking for the first few months on the difference between our dog, and the other raw fed dogs we know, and the dogs we see at the park.
Anecdotes aside, I’d love to know what this guy considers “raw food” because there’s a million “raw diets” out there, and I can come pretty damn close to guaranteeing the “diet” they studied was probably not what I or anyone else I know feeds. I can’t say that with absolute certainty, because I haven’t seen the study, but no research I’ve ever read on raw diets ever actually involves any kind of complete diet, and if it does, it’s one of the ones that involves pounds of veggie slop and supplements and grinding and all the blah blah blah associated with those that think it’s got to be such an ungodly complicated mess.
You know, I’ve never quite been able to grasp the mindset of those who believe that it’s some sort of nigh insurmountable task to figure out how to feed an animal. Dogs and cats have been domesticated for how many tens of thousands of years? And packaged, processed food has existed for, what… sixty or so? How many people get on a soapbox and insist that we as a society need to eat more packaged, processed foods? How many people feed their children “kid kibble” because we’re just not smart enough to meet the complex nutritional requirements of human children?
Heh, of course it is. Who funds nearly all nutrition research being done in veterinary medicine? Who’s going to find a study showing actual food to be more nutritious than a bag of kibble?
It’s hardly paranoia, Nestle (parent company of Alpo) just largely funded through private donations a shiny new Center for Companion Animal Health building attached to the VMII building on campus at UC Davis–not that I’ve really got a tinfoil hat thing going, but you can’t truly believe that objective studies of companion animal nutrition can be performed when your livelihood depends on the good graces of the pet food industry, heh.
I’m not really one to put much faith in the “interwebwaffle”–it’s enough for me to take a look at the diet these animals have evolved over millions of years to eat, and supply them with that.
Who’s going to fund a study showing actual food to be more nutritious than a bag of kibble?
Some commercial food does contain (only) ‘human grade’ ingredients, and some does not. Friskies, being among the cheapest of cat foods, does not. However, there are a couple of problems here. The first, which may be an issue of semantics rather than food quality is that there is not a formal definition of ‘human grade’ in pet foods, and by (FDA) definition, once food arrives in a pet food facility, it is no longer defined as ‘human grade’. Some touchy-feely food companies do clarify what they mean by ‘human grade’, such as Active Life .
Second, cats are not humans, and feeding them human grade food does not guarantee a good diet. For example, many of the ‘premium’, human-grade commercial foods do not have a good nutritional profile. In many of these cases, the nutrient - esp. mineral - content suggests that relatively poor quality meat is being used, e.g., meat high in bone.
Yes, that’s true. Then again, humans don’t generally chow down on mouse sandwiches, either.
Commercial foods that claim ‘human grade’ (or ‘no byproducts’) ingredients - there are many. Wellness, Active Life, Natural Life, Felidae, Merrick, Newman’s Own (made with organic meat, no less), etc. I have no way of proving that these companies actually use ‘human grade’ ingredients, but they all use that label as their (not very) U USP. FWIW, I do believe that if they say the meat is ‘human grade’ it could, in principle, have entered the human food chain instead of pet food chain.
Well, you’ve chosen among the worst of the commercial foods there. But anyway, the answer is - it depends on the nutritional profile of the vet-approved recipe. Just because it’s vet-approved, doesn’t mean it will be good. Potentially, a home-produced diet could meet all the nutritional requirements of a cat, with the advantages of knowing the exact food content, quality, i.e., it could be better than commercial food. But ‘could be’ <> ‘is’.
Anyway, if feeding commercial food, I wouldn’t use Friskies.
The information is available, but it does take some effort to find. Plus, I’ve not found any info on the variability of nutritional content in meats / organs. This is something I would want to know before commiting to a home diet. Perhaps this information is readily available? Or perhaps raw feeders are less concerned that I am?
Now, IMO raw feeders fall into two camps. The first are highly motivated individuals who carefully work out the nutritional requirements of their cats, and formulate a diet to suit, carrying out all research necessary to do this. The others are filled with the wooly-thinking that ‘raw = good’ and do not see beyond this short-circuit. In SACN, there are various examples of the sort of errors than uninformed or ill-informed home-feeders can make.
So, you find fault with Funaba et al.'s study? What do you think is incorrect in their methodology?
You do not ‘need’ to feed it to your pets. However, people who choose to feed CGM to their pets are feeding something that is a ‘reasonable’ food - not quite as good as meat meal, but not the hellish grain death the raw crowd would have us believe.
You are speaking of dry foods. As I said earlier, dry foods are not ideal. Commercial canned foods are typically quite low in carbohydrate, and if you’re so inclined it’s possible to get grain-free commercial foods.
Yes. My cats are of normal weight, too - not because they get a raw diet or even a good diet per se, but because they get the correct number of calories to maintain a healthy weight!
Dogs aren’t carnivores.
Obesity in pets is not due to carbs per se; just as in humans, what matters is balancing energy used with energy supplied. However, I absolutely agree that dry foods, which happen to be high in carbs, are an integral part of pet obesity. IMO, an increasing number of under-exercised, indoor cats, fed a palatable, very energy dense diet is a reciple for a lard supreme. I also suspect that (post-ingestive) satiety cues are lower in carbs versus protein sources, so that carbs might play a role in overeating.
The Allan et al. study was based on owner’s report of their pet’s diet. It was a questionaire study.
However, there are other studies that suggest raw food is not a dental panacea, never mind a universal panacea. For example, Clarke & Cameron (1998) found that feral cats had just as high incidence of peridontal disease as pet cats. They comment ‘The severity of peridontal disease in the feral cats contradicts the claims of the importance of the texture of the natural diet in preventing peridontal disease’. Now, a home, raw diet may have a dental protective effect that was not present in the ferals of Clarke & Cameron, but any such evidence is purely anecdotal, AFAIK.
And in those 60 or so years, the lifespan of pets has increased greatly. It’s likely that commercial food, based on sound research in animal nutrition, is at least a partial reason for this.
Indeed. Must be an Evil Ploy by the Great Devils of Pet Food. Or maybe the pet food industry hopes to improve the quality of their foods, via research? Now there’s a radical idea!
I don’t know about you, but I don’t spend my life carefully charting every ingredient in every food I eat to track the nutritional content, and somehow every member of my family is magically not dying of malnutrition. I find it hard to believe you’re really that worried–you must spend a whole lot more time on your own diet than I do.
Mmhmm, which as far as I can tell, I’ve not disputed. I happen to be an example of the former, and there are quite a few of us around. Sooooo… what’s your issue?
Did I dispute their methodology? No, I commented on the idiotic mindset of a group of educated individuals who spend SO much time and energy trying to justify feeding an animal a food they were not evolved to eat. Actually, what I really commented on is the multi-billion dollar a year companies who pay these educated individuals to justify this for them, so vets can blather on about how “efficacious” these artificial foods are.
Well, no one’s frothing at the mouth here but you. All I said is that I see no need to feed my carnivorous pets a food they were not evolved to eat, and that corn is an inappropriate ingredient to the diet of a carnivore. I believe “hellish grain death” is your choice of words.
Ah HA! Wait, let me repeat that, just to hear the sweet, sweet sounds one more time:
:dubious: Let me get this straight, you’re here, posting in a thread regarding companion animal dental health, and you’re suggesting canned food is the ideal diet?
Really? What about the cushy lifestyle, involving routine medical care, little work, not living outdoors, and so on? And what about all the hip displasyia? Other health problems that are exploding? Or is that only because animals are living longer and we’re more able to diagnose things? Did small breeds have hip problems fifty years ago?
Oh, now you’re just being silly!
Well, there are differences between feeding yourself and feeding your cat. If you feed yourself badly, you can probably tell and adjust your diet to suit. Mind you, plenty of people do have a poor diet and suffer accordingly. Anyway, your cat is 100% dependent on you for its nutrition. If the cat’s diet is screwed up it cannot change said diet itself, and it cannot tell you it feels less than great. Plus, following certain nutritional guidelines is well established to increase lifespan.
My issue is with people fucking up their cat’s diets based on an inability to correctly evaluate scientific data. Doesn’t matter what you ‘happen’ to be, this thread is not just for the benefit of the two of us.
And now, as well as basically ignoring or decrying the research, you are willing to leap into the researcher’s heads and attribute all manner of evil intentions to 'em. You seem to miss the point that the science itself is neutral. It does not matter what the ‘intentions’ are, as long as the work is sound. That you dislike the results is your problem alone. And if you cannot provide any criticism of the articles, well…
Certainly there’s no ‘need’ to feed commercial or carb-heavy diets. However, it is you alone who is making unsupported statements about the dental worth of a raw diet. If looking at and critically evaluating the science is ‘frothing at the mouth’ then I’m happy to be frothy.
Again, you’ve made an assumption about canned food and about dry food that’s not borne out in reality. First, if you’re thinking that dry foods promote dental health, then realise that this has only been confirmed for a tiny subset of foods - foods specifically designed for dental health (see the VOHC link I provided earlier). Also, for these specific diets to work, it requires the cat to bite through the kibble pieces. This is not guaranteed, given that cats do not chew their food. Second, there’s no evidence that wet food is detrimental to dental health - or at least any possible minor dental issues with wet food are far outweighed by the benefits of wet food.
Next, cats are relatively prone to certain types of peridontal disease that occur regardless of diet, and even if the owner gives proper dental care (i.e., brushing). So, regular dental checkups are necessary and there’s no evidence that a raw diet protects against such disease. A raw diet might aid in limiting calculus accumulation, although this is a lesser problem than peridontal disease, and a raw diet does not prevent calculus.
Basically, the dental benefits of a raw diet are certainly lower than the interweb gurus say, and the problems with a home-prepared diet will probably outweight the benefits for most pet owers.
All factors, yes. Although the ‘cushy’ lifestyle is almost certainly a factor in pet obesity. Cats can’t have their kitty-cake and eat it!
Hip dysplasia is associated with a very limited number specific cat breeds (e.g., large breeds such as Maine Coons). AFAIK, no-one even suggests this is diet-related. If hip dysplasia is on the increase - and I don’t know if it is - then I would suspect poor breeding practices, not diet.
Other health problems that are ‘exploding’?
I’m sure that as cats live longer, they will suffer from the problems of old age. And, as diagnostics improve, more problems will be detected. I don’t know how long breed-associated defects have been in evidence, but if there is ongoing breeding from susceptible lines, then problems would be expected to increase over time.
I’m beginning to believe that perhaps you’re either being deliberately obtuse, or maybe you’re just so blinded by this need to argue with me that you’re not reading what I’m writing.
So… again, what are you so hyped up about? You keep saying that just because it’s “raw” doesn’t mean it’s a nutritionally complete diet. I am agreeing with you, and I have not once disagreed with you. I’ve spent an awful lot of time on this topic and am constantly admonishing people to do their homework and be sure that they’re providing a complete diet. You have acknowledged in several posts that a well-planned raw diet can be better than prepackaged food, and you replied to me that dry foods are not ideal. What’s the argument?
And again I think you’re getting a little hysterical over this. Who’s ignoring or decrying anything? I’m not saying anyone or anything is “evil”–those are your words. I just think it’s borderline idiotic to spend all that time, money, and energy “proving” that cats can survive on vegitative matter. I am not disagreeing that cats can survive on vegitative matter. Millions and millions of cats eat corn all day long and survive. Yippideedoodah. Someone could provide me with a very well performed study that says we can feed sheep to cattle and they’ll survive with only minimal health problems to show for it. Doesn’t mean we should start mixing meat and bone meal with our cattle feed does it? Oh, wait…
Take a deep breath for one second, and let’s go back to square one, or maybe it was two, or twelve, I can’t remember at this point. Didn’t we already go over this, several times? Of course there’s no research to support raw diets of any kind. Who’s going to pay for it? Shall I repeat myself? And here, I’ll go even further and give you something else to pee your pants over. Hill’s and Ralston-Purina fund the majority of nutritional research for companion animal health. They are in the business of selling dog and cat food. They are not going to fund any sort of study that says anything other than their food is the tippity-top a-number-one choice to feed your pets, whether it’s for dental health, growing puppies, or purple-tongued-curly eared kittens. Furthermore, Hill’s funds very nearly all nutrition education for veterinary students, aside from providing them with all the food they can feed their pets at free or no cost, and market themselves exclusively through vets. Vets spend a lot of time verbally orgasming over this stuff, and it’s one of the crappiest “premium” foods on the market. Having grown up my entire life in and around the veterinary industry, and spent the majority of my adult life at UC Davis, I can say with great certainty that many vets–not all, but many know fuck-all about small animal nutrition other than what Hills tells them. You may be one of the good ones who does their research and teaches themselves about nutrition, but you’re so deafened by your need to argue with me that it’s really getting hard to tell.
There are a whole lot of other ways to answer a question than to look for published studies to answer the question. For example… my pets get a bit too much soft food, say organ meats or tripe, and their teeth start to look a little gunky. I give them some bone, say a chicken back for the cats or a deer leg for the dog, and their teeth are sparkily shiny again. Question answered.
[quote]
Again, you’ve made an assumption about canned food and about dry food that’s not borne out in reality. First, if you’re thinking that dry foods promote dental health, then realise that this has only been confirmed for a tiny subset of foods - foods specifically designed for dental health (see the VOHC link I provided earlier).
[quote]
snicker Okay, so now we’ve established that you haven’t read a single word I’ve said.
Again, I’m begging you. Pleading, even. Listen to this:
I am not now claiming, and never in my life have I claimed that any raw food is better than any packaged food, or that people should run out and feed their cats hamburger patties rather than dry food. Incomplete diets can lead to some nasty health problems. Half-assed home feeding leads to nasty health problems. I’ll be the first one to tell someone that.
All I’m saying is that a well-thought-out raw diet, one that ** completely meets the animal’s nutritonal needs** is better than processed dry food. Furthermore, if that diet involves edible bone matter, it will tend to keep the animal from building up huge amounts of nasty crap on their teeth that cause them to rot and fall out.
I have no published material, because I cannot afford to fund a study. If you’d like me to provide you with a couple thousand names and email addresses of people who’ve had similar sucess, then I’ll be happy to do so. End of story.
You can continue the hijack at your own leisure, but since you seem to be creating an arguement where one doesn’t exist, I won’t be participating.
Conflict is bad. Anyway…
Our Dottie’s breath was bad - like you could smell it 5 miles away, but she was feral for like the first year and a half of her life. She got a cleaning that included one extraction and in a few places they placed some_stuff that would make her gums stick back to the teeth where they had receded a bit. We did sign up for the blood work that made sure she could handle the procedure. She was also microchiped, and maybe even got her shots (though I’m not a big fan) at that time.
Total was around or below $250. Right now, on Tuesdays and Thursdays my vet is offering a 20% discount on cleanings.
Hm, I’m beginning to believe that perhaps you’re either being deliberately obtuse, or maybe you’re just so blinded by this need to argue with me that you’re not reading what I’m writing.
As I said before, the points we are presenting are not, I think, for each other’s benefit. I’m certainly not trying to convert you to commercial food. The points I’m making are really for other people to read and evaluate, if there are any still awake.
There are good reasons to spend the time; cats with chronic renal failure (CRF) should be fed a low phosphorous diet to keep them alive. This is difficult to achieve with a meat-only diet. If cats can thrive on carbs, then it’s possible to produce an appropriate (commercial) diet for CRF.
Double layers of tinfoil and a radar dish.
You keep comparing a raw diet to a dry food diet. A strawman argument.
Anyway, my final summary points are (bringing this back toward the dental issue):
-
There is very limited evidence that a raw diet is useful for dental health, and some (peer reviewed) evidence that a raw diet does not confer great dental benefit.
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Regardless of diet, cats are fairly prone to some types of dental disease.
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Compounding a raw, home diet is not a trivial task, and there are many opportunities to screw up a cat’s nutrition.
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Therefore, for most people, it does not make sense to feed a raw diet for dental (or other) reasons.
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Exception: If an owner is very motivated, they can compound an excellent diet that should at least not be detrimental to dental health.
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There is little evidence that wet food is bad for cats’ teeth, and the benefits of wet food outweigh any dental disadvantages.
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There exists dry food that has been shown to confer dental benefits. This food, as any dry food, is high in non-meat products. The evidence that these non-meat products are bad for the cat is very limited, although they do seem to be non-optimal in some ways.
That’ll do for me.
Hee hee…that line made reading page one worth it!
Maybe if you aren’t feeding raw food, you can think of the $500 as what you are saving on not buying food for your pet that is better than the food I eat.
And am I the only one who sees domestic, feral, and game cats eating plants? Obligate carnivore means the have to eat meat (to get taurine) not that they eat meat and can’t digest anything but bits of animal.
As far as the OP, yeah $500 sounds high…can you give us a price breakdown? They are usually worst-case scenerio. I paid ~150 for limited bloodwork, cleaning with no extractions, ECG. I only did the ECG because my kitty has a funny heart rhythm that seems to only show up when the mean scary vet is seeing us. (the ECG was normal, so I blame the mean scary vet…but I digress…again and again…I keep trying to quit…is there a 12 step program?). You can often turn down certain services. Bloodwork on a younger animal doesn’t have to be as extensive as an older one, there are pain killer options that will only be employed if kitty has to have extractions. I turned down the pain management option because kitties don’t really experience pain the same way people do and the pain killer is more for the owner than the patient. My neighbor had about the same arrangement with a different vet. And ask around for better prices. One important thing to remember is that if kitties teeth are bad, the cost of care is only going to go up.
Great idea. Hopefully someone with experience in this field can respond:
[ul]
[li]$30 Antibiotic injection [/li][li]$66 Pre-Anesthetic Profile [/li][li]$70 Optional ECG Recommended (ECG? cardiogram?) [/li][li]$155 Isoflorane Anesthesia -small [/li][li]$28 Hospital Stay [/li][li]$85 Dentistry [/li][li]$35 Amoxidrops Large [/li][li]$4.25 Medical Waste Disposal[/li][/ul]
totals a little under $500. Are any of these numbers particularly inflated? This is an expensive area, and I’m sure the rent for the animal hospital is very high, but others were saying similar work could be done for under $250 ?
Well, for starters it sounds like you could knock off the $70 for the ECG … does your vet have some reason for believing there might be something wrong with your cat’s heart? I don’t have a cat myself, but I’ve had dogs for years and have never had anyone suggest an ECG prior to a dental cleaning, not even for the dog that HAD a heart murmur (though we already knew exactly what the problem was there). He did, however, have the pre-anesthetic profile done, which is a blood panel designed to check for organ problems that might not be obvious. Some vets do that on all the pets they put under for dentals, some will only do it for older pets. You can decline it too, but personally I wouldn’t. You never know what you might find …
The $30 for the antibiotic injection sounds high, but it would depend on what antibiotic they are using. Perhaps you could ask if there’s something less expensive they could use.
With the $155 for the isoflurane, it’s hard to say because there may be more included in that cost than just the gas itself. Isoflurane is a more expensive anesthesia than the older inhalant-types, but it’s worth it because it is safer and it seems to be pretty much the standard thing used these days. Also, induction agents are often used to relax the animal before the gas is administered, and those cost something too. It may also include the cost of having someone monitor the anesthesia while someone else does the cleaning, which is DEFINITELY worth the extra cost.
Don’t be afraid to ask the vet what you are getting for the money. Some things are worth it, some are not, and as the client, you get to decide.
Hi-
I manage a vet clinic so maybe can shed a little light on these things. First of all, the anesthesia does seem a little inflated- we generally charge $129 for the denistry which includes the anesthesia. Even our flat under 30 min. anesthesia charge (and we also use Isoflourane) is only $85.00 and I live in a moderate area for vet prices (Las Vegas, in a neighborhood w/ a fairly high income bracket). I would definitely eliminate the ECG if your pet is under 10-12 years of age. Cats, in my experience, do not seem to have as many heart issues as dogs do (and even dogs its more breed specific or elderly dogs at higher risk). Also, if you cat is under 7 years, I would ask if the bloodwork is optional or not (some places require it, we only require it in pets over 7 years). While I would do bloodwork on my own personal animals- I realize I have the luxury of that since I get everything at half price due to my job. Most younger animals, and even animals in the older age brackets have very few complications with anesthesia- esp. Isoflourane which is among the safest. So talk to you vet- personally if the teeth/gums are so bad that the cat is at risk, systemically (i.e infection), I think you need to decide whether the risk is greater if you don’t do the dental than whether you do the preventative diagnostics before the dental. And yes, your cat does need anesthesia to do this- to just “knock” off the tarter would not only be uncomfortable but pretty dangerous for the vet employees- cat bites are (at our hospital) our worse workers comp. injuries and can permanent damage - esp. to valuable hands.
Can I ask a question? Is there a reason why the cat must be anesthetized during this procedure, rather than consciously sedated via Ace or some other drug? It seems like it would be a lot less expensive and less dangerous to the animal…
I know I have had a fairly big dental procedure (4 wisdom teeth removed, 2 impacted, all with loooong roots) under conscious sedation w/IV demerol.
Because you are a rational creature who understands whats going on. A cat that is under mild sedation as opposed to intubated anesthesia can still bite. Even if they are not conscious of what is going on, they may have reflex reactions to the teeth cleaning and instruments being used. Anesthesia is now extremely safe- in the last year I can think of only two animals with complications during or after anesthesia- both survived without long lasting affects. Considering we do 6-8 procecedures a day, I couldn’t consider anesthesia in general to be “dangerous”. Of course, our practice emphasizes preventative diagnostics like pre-op bloodwork.
Point in the first Part: I was not “mildly sedated.” From my point of view I was stone cold knocked out. But not, apparently from a medical point of view. (they did have to strap down my hands to stop me checking out what was going on, so I wouldn’t say I was exactly rationally following instructions).
Point in the second part: when my horse saw a dentist, they sedated her for the procedure. How is a horse different from a cat in its ability to understand the process? Only difference I can see is a horse can stone cold kill you if it objects strenuously enough. Yet I have never heard of anesthesia for horse dentistry. Also, when they do dentisty on horses they sometimes use a thingy to hold their mouth open for the procedure. This thingy does not exist for cats?
I am not disagreeing with you (IAClearlyNAVet) or even calling anesthesia a “dangerous” procedure. However I know that it is a LOT more dangerous than basic sedation. This is true for humans, horses, cats, dogs, ferrets, and probably martians. Hence the need for bloodwork, qualified technicians to monitor it, etc. Hence the vastly higher pricetag for anesthesia.
It seems like if they can do dentistry under sedation to other animals, they can do it to cats too. But what the heck do I know?
Hell, I’ll say it. Both my vets have stated in clear language that anesthesia carries a significantly higher risk on older animals. My older cat (15 yrs) had a lot of tartar buildup the last time I had her looked at and the vet knocked it off in a couple of minutes. Done. Just like the work I get at a Dentist only without the polishing.
I would not risk anesthesia on my cats for the purposes of cleaning teeth. If a vet suggested it I would get a second opinion and consider changing vets.