Saving Your Pet’s Teeth: How Clindoral Helps Avoid Extractions
When we talk with pet owners about dental disease, one worry comes up more than any other: “Are you going to have to pull teeth?” Extractions are sometimes the kindest option for a tooth that is too far gone, but they are never our goal. At Prairie Animal Hospital, we would much rather save a tooth than remove one, and one of the tools that helps us do that is a medication called Clindoral.
What Periodontal Disease Actually Does
Periodontal disease is the most common health problem we see in adult dogs and cats, and it starts quietly. Plaque hardens into tartar, bacteria work their way beneath the gum where you cannot see them, and the gum pulls away from the tooth to form a pocket. Inside that pocket, inflammation sets in and the bone that anchors the tooth slowly dissolves.
Here is the part that matters most: a tooth does not fall out because it rots. It falls out because it loses its bone and ligament loss due to infection which is its foundation. Our job is to stop that bone loss before the tooth reaches the point of no return.
The Teeth We Fight Hardest to Keep
Every tooth serves a purpose, but a few are especially important, and losing them changes how your pet eats.
The canine teeth. These are the four long, pointed “fangs” at the front corners of the mouth, the largest teeth your dog or cat has, with roots that reach deep into the jaw. Dogs use them to grip and carry things, and cats use them for the precise bite that makes them such efficient little hunters, even if the prey these days is a feather toy. In the upper jaw, the canine tooth root sits very close to the nasal passage, so advanced disease here can create a hole between the mouth and the nose. Extracting an upper canine is a significant surgery, and keeping this tooth healthy is always worth the effort.
The carnassial teeth. These are the big chewing teeth toward the back of the mouth: the upper fourth premolar and the lower first molar. In dogs, they work together like a pair of scissors and do most of the heavy lifting on kibble and chews. Cats rely on their carnassial teeth to shear food the same way. The upper carnassial has three roots and sits directly below the eye, which is why an abscess on this tooth sometimes shows up as facial swelling. Pets adapt when these teeth are lost, but they give up real chewing function that cannot be replaced.
If we can keep the canine and carnassial teeth healthy, your pet keeps the tools that matter most for eating comfortably for years to come.
What Clindoral Is and How It Works
Clindoral is a periodontal gel that contains the antibiotic clindamycin. The gel is placed directly into the pocket between the gum and the tooth during a professional dental cleaning under anesthesia. Once it is in place, it thickens and clings to the tissue, then slowly releases antibiotic right where the infection lives for about a week to ten days.
The appeal is targeting. An oral antibiotic travels through the whole body and only a fraction reaches the gum pocket. Clindoral delivers a concentrated dose exactly where the bacteria are hiding, and the gel doubles as a temporary barrier that keeps food and new bacteria out while the tissue heals.
Clindoral was developed and approved for use in dogs, and veterinary dentists have also found it useful for cats when a pocket is the right size to treat. Your veterinarian will decide during the cleaning whether it makes sense for your pet.
What the Research Shows
Published studies in dogs found that adding a clindamycin gel after cleaning and root planing produced measurably shallower pockets, fewer bleeding sites, and healthier gum tissue three months later compared with cleaning alone. Shallower pockets mean less room for bacteria and slower bone loss. In other words, Clindoral helps tip a borderline tooth back toward the healthy side of the line.
How It Fits Into a Dental Cleaning at Prairie Animal Hospital
Clindoral is not a stand-alone fix, and it is not something we can apply during an awake exam. It works as part of a complete dental procedure that includes:
-
Full-mouth dental X-rays so we can see the bone around every root and know exactly which teeth are healthy, which are salvageable, and which are beyond saving.
-
Scaling above and below the gumline to remove tartar and bacteria, followed by root planing to smooth the root surface so the gum can reattach.
-
Pocket measurement on every tooth. When we find a pocket that is deeper than normal but the tooth still has good bone support, that is our candidate for Clindoral.
-
Placing the gel into those specific pockets after cleaning, especially around canine and carnassial teeth, before your pet wakes up.
-
A recheck plan, because we want to confirm the pocket has improved rather than simply hope it did.
What This Means for Your Pet
A tooth that might otherwise have been extracted today gets a real chance to stay in the mouth. Your dog keeps the big chewing teeth that make mealtime satisfying, and your cat keeps the canine teeth that are part of what makes a cat a cat. Recovery is easy
We do want to be honest about limits. If X-rays show that more than half the bone around a root is already gone, or the tooth is loose, Clindoral cannot rebuild what has been lost. In those cases, extraction truly is the more comfortable choice for your pet, and we will walk you through why. The best way to make sure Clindoral is an option is to schedule dental care before the disease gets that far with yearly dental cleanings. We only apply the antibiotic if there are pockets of disease that are less than 50% bone loss and only if we think post dental care will occur.
Keeping Those Teeth Healthy at Home
Once we have determined that a tooth is in trouble, the goal is to keep it. Daily brushing remains the gold standard post administration, and we are happy to show you a Fear Free approach to getting your dog or cat comfortable with it. Dental chews with the Veterinary Oral Health Council seal help between brushings, and regular professional cleanings let us catch new pockets while they are still small enough to treat.
If it has been a while since your pet’s last dental exam, or you have noticed bad breath, red gums, or a change in how your pet chews, we would love to take a look. Saving a tooth is far easier than replacing one, and it starts with a conversation.
Prairie Animal Hospital proudly serves Peoria, Brimfield, Dunlap, and the surrounding communities. We are Fear Free and Cat Friendly Certified.