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Dental Crowns
Custom veterinary dental crowns can help protect damaged, worn, or treated teeth while preserving strength and function.
Custom veterinary dental crowns can help protect damaged, worn, or treated teeth while preserving strength and function.
At Mainely Veterinary Dentistry & Urgent Care, we offer custom dental crowns to help protect and preserve damaged or weakened teeth. Crowns may be recommended after root canal therapy, for certain worn teeth, or when additional protection is needed to help maintain the strength and function of a natural tooth.
Dental crowns can be especially valuable for working dogs, service dogs, and other pets that place significant stress on their teeth during daily activities.
A crown covers and protects the visible portion of a tooth. Depending on the individual patient, our veterinary dental team may recommend a crown for:
Not every damaged tooth needs a crown. The appropriate treatment depends on the tooth involved, the extent of the damage, your pet’s behavior and lifestyle, and findings from the dental examination and imaging.
Preserving a functional natural tooth may be especially important for dogs that rely heavily on their mouths for work or daily activity.
When the pulp inside a fractured tooth has been exposed or damaged, the tooth may require either extraction or root canal therapy. Root canal therapy removes the diseased or damaged pulp while allowing the natural tooth to remain in place.
After a root canal, a crown may be recommended for certain teeth to provide additional protection against future wear or fracture.
The American Veterinary Dental College recognizes restoration with metal or zirconium crowns as one of the advanced procedures performed in veterinary dentistry.
We have also added an intraoral scanner to make the crown process faster and more precise.
Traditionally, creating a veterinary dental crown required making a physical impression of the treated tooth and surrounding teeth. That impression then had to be shipped to the dental laboratory so a model and custom crown could be created.
Our intraoral scanner allows us to create a detailed digital impression while your pet is already under anesthesia for their dental procedure.
As Dr. Jennifer Keaten explains:
“We can actually scan our tooth while the patient’s under anesthesia. We can scan that whole quadrant if we want to and make a digital impression that we can send immediately.”
The scan captures the treated tooth along with the surrounding teeth so the dental laboratory has the information needed to fabricate a custom crown that fits properly within your pet’s mouth.
Digital files can be sent immediately rather than waiting for physical impressions to be shipped, helping streamline the crown fabrication process.
The goal of a veterinary dental crown is not simply cosmetic. Crowns are used to protect selected teeth and help preserve their function.
This can be particularly beneficial for important chewing teeth or for working and service dogs that regularly use their mouths as part of their job.
Our team evaluates every patient individually to determine whether a crown, root canal therapy, extraction, or another treatment is the best option for long-term oral health.
Mainely Veterinary Dentistry & Urgent Care provides advanced veterinary dental services for dogs and cats throughout Maine and the surrounding region.
