>I was told that my ferrets had to be put to sleep to clean their teeth.
>I completely believed this.
 
I am sorry for the loss of your ferret, but the clinic gave you the most
responsible advice.  Animals should be anesthetized for a proper dental
cleaning.  CBC, blood chemistry, and a full exam before anesthesia to
anticipate risks are always a good idea.
 
>There is an instrument that can be used to scrape off the calculus of
ferrets in situations where it might be dangerous to put them under.
 
The first part of a prophylactic cleaning is scaling, or scraping off
tarter and calculus.  An ultrasonic scaler is a lot more effective than
hand instruments, but even so, scaling should not be done alone.  The
second step is polishing, which removes the abrasions and scratches that
you made by scaling.  If you scale but don't polish, the tarter will just
rapidly return by attaching to the crevices, and often be as bad or worse
as before within a few months.
 
>There may be a number of drugs to use to make the ferret sleepy, so as
>to do a good job scraping the teeth.  I would think it would be possible
>to use one of these instead of anesthesia?
 
Animals are anesthetized instead of traquilized because they need to
place an endotracheal tube to prevent them from aspirating the debris
they are cleaning and the water that is sprayed by the ultrasonic
instrument to prevent thermal burns.  It would not be safe to do a
normal dental prophy on an animal that wasn't intubated.
[Posted in FML issue 4447]