Dental disease causes significant welfare harm in companion animals that is largely preventable through appropriate preventive care and early veterinary intervention.
Dental disease causes chronic pain, difficulty eating, and systemic infection that reduces wellbeing throughout an animal's life. Prevention through tooth brushing, appropriate diet, and regular veterinary dental assessment is far preferable to treating established disease. The welfare cost of chronic dental pain in millions of companion animals represents a significant and underrecognised problem that better owner education could substantially reduce.