I must admit that I have been very lax in providing routine dental cleanings for my animals. HOWEVER, several of my cats have developed serious tooth infections and required extensive dental procedures including multiple tooth extractions to return their mouths to pain-free functionality. They were in such intense pain before their dental procedures that to sit back and do nothing was not an option. One of them was 18+ yrs old, hyperT and CRF at the time of the dental procedure and extractions, and he came through it just fine and is still going strong two years later. The other was 15 and hyperT, and she also came through the procedure fine and is doing well now. Untreated dental infections can cause serious and permanent damage to the heart and kidneys, so if your cat's teeth are in bad shape, dental cleaning is important for his overall health. There are precautions that can and should be taken when performing dental procedures on elderly cats. You can find them at the link below. Laurie Here is a link that might be useful: precautions for dental procedures in elderly cats

Our clean up area isn't in a separate room but is outside of the cooking/prep area. The cooking/prep area is a "G" shape with 3 walls plus a peninsula. The small sink and dw are located on the other side of the peninsula. This works really well for us. The big sink is in the cooking zone and is perfect for us since I usually have several things going on in the sink during meal prep (filling large pots with water, draining colanders, peeling veggies, soaking utensils in sudsy water as I finish with them.) The smaller sink near the dw is used for drinking water, washing hands, scraping dishes before going into the dw, water supply for the baking area, and as another area for prep when others are in the kitchen. We pass cooking pots over the peninsula as they go in and out of the dw (I hand wash larger pots and pots with plastic handles in the main sink near the range.) I like the way our kitchen flows from range to table to dw. When there are a couple of people doing clean up, it's handy to have one person stationed at the main sink washing non-dw pots, wooden ware and plastic ware while the other person is clearing the table and loading the dw. Dirty dishes can accumulate on the counter near the dw completely out of the cooking/prep area. My preference is to have dish storage close to point of use rather than close to the dw. Dishes are in a cabinet between the cooking/prep area and table (with doors that open from either side.) I spent a lot of time imagining how things would flow in our kitchen and it works as I had hoped.

We have Trupanion - but we are Canadian. Trupanion used to be a Cdn. company called Vet Insurance - that was trying to move into the U.S. - but in the end bought a U.S. Company and now is headquartered there. We took out the insurance when our dog was 15 months old - we initally did not take it out because the plan DID NOT (at the time) cover hip dysplasia. Now the plan does BUT NOT for existing clients. Imagine paying premiums for 6 years and your dog develop dysplasia - you are not covered, but someone who signed up 35 days before is. People were very annoyed but with pets who were 6 years old, up the creek. Originally deductibles were not part of the plan. Now of course they are. Our original premiums were $32.00 a month plus our Cdn. taxes. Now they are $75.00 a month - and the increase to $75 happened before we ever had a claim - which did not happen until May of 2011 when our dog developed what was thought to be conjunctivitis but was really an ulcer in the making that in turn became an abscessed cornea. He is a white dog with perfectly clear eyes so we caught the problem day one. We had our most recent appointment with the board certified eye specialist in Nov. of 2012. The "crud" of course is still in his eye. So in addition to our monthly premiums of $75 we have been seeing the eye specialist every 4 months for nearly 1 1/2 years - this after constant treatments with our regular vet. NOTE - RECHECKS ARE NOT COVERED. So if the bill is say $125.00 plus taxes - we receive about $22.00 back (taxes are not returned). I wanted surgery at the beginning - used to have Dachshunds who had full body back surgery - and this happened with my 2 special guys - so I felt cursed. It would have been far cheaper. In retrospect, we would have been far further ahead to have had a bank account for our guy based on his excellent health until the eye problem. Cost wise this has cost us thousands. I called Trupanion after the most recent e-mail regarding adding prescription food, behavior modification etc. to the plan to ask how much this was going to cost us - even though we won't be able to use it. Our dog does cost us a lot of money with check-ups, vaccines etc. - plus dentals. His dentals usually run about $1,200 - and of course are not covered. Many people at the specialist's office have pet insurance and all feel the same. I did call when I heard about the addition of hip dysplasia - our dog does not have it - and asked if it could be added for existing clients whose dogs have never exhibited any signs of the health issue - and who have not submitted any claims. They said they were looking at grandfathering it, but didn't. Also watch the hospitalization issue - although these days you are lucky not be sent home the day after heart surgery. If you are hospitalized for 4 days, the plan will pay for boarding of your dog - EXCEPT my husband and I are both shown as our dog's owners. Since he wouldn't be in the hospital - he could be travelling - at work - visiting me in the hospital etc. - Trupanion would not pay since he would be available to care for our dog - and vice versa. This happened to someone else. So put the insurance in one person's name and hope. Our dog will turn 9 next April - so obviously we are not about to cancel the policy. He will also most likely be our last dog. In the event that the worst should happen and he die prematurely (his breed often lives to be 18) and we did get another dog, it would be a senior dog and we would not take out insurance or go to extreme measures. Each person has to decide what to do. Our breed of dog is known to be healthy if you adopt a standard size as opposed to one that has been mucked about with so that the dog weighs 5 lbs. as opposed to 25 lbs. And this has been the case. Every day I check his eyes - next appointment will be in 6 months, unless something happens. I do believe in pet insurance - BUT - not when they change the plans to attract new customers and leave the existing customers out in the cold. In Canada we do not have the variety of plans offered in the U.S. so I would do some checking. Look at the LIFETIME COVERAGE of a condition (much like kids' braces); the annual MAXIMUM per condition - some plans will pay say $1,000 annually for a broken leg - but a broken leg will cost you a lot more than $1,000 to have fixed - that type of thing - as well as the regular deductible and any breed specific deductibles and general deductibles. Also, exactly what is covered - and if they stop covering certain illnesses whether you will be grandfathered - not necessarily so as my vet found out with her pet. Our dog is more likely to develop Patellar Luxation or tear an ACL - so far so good - and supposedly we would be covered since he does not have a prexisting condition.

I had seen the media reports about flossing myself. Here is what the American Dental Association says: http://www.ada.org/en/science-research/science-in-the-news/the-medical-benefit-of-daily-flossing-called-into-question In short, they appear to say flossing offers minimal benefits, but that since 50 percent of American suffer from gingivitis/periodontal disease, it's worth achieving the small benefit. Specifically the authors pointed out two difficulties in studying the benefits of flossing: First, people fib and say they floss more than they do, so studying the effects of flossing can be difficult based upon reliance on self reporting. Second, there are people who floss well and people who do not floss well- most do not. So even when people are telling the truth about their flossing habits, they may be very poor flossers, hence harming the studying of flossing. As a lifetime non-flosser, this article, which I read a while ago, did not convince me that my non-flossing ways were acceptable. It seems obvious to me that if I have nasty stuff caught in between my teeth that cannot be doing any good for my teeth and gums, or my overall health in general. Your physical health depends upon your mouth's health in many ways. And in many instances the health of your mouth reflects the health of your body (you may have seen the previous studies on oral health and heart disease, for example.)