Dental procedure, sad result :(

One of our dear little Maltese (9 years old) died this month during the prep for a routine tooth cleaning. She was under light anesthesia, and all was well except for her oxygen sat level – it was slightly off, so the vet was doing some extra checking before proceeding. She had her stethoscope on my dog’s heart and heard the emboli strike – they tried to save her, but couldn’t.

Another person wrote about a similar issue but I can’t find that post now, so am starting a new thread.

My question: Since my dog died I’ve read that placque can somehow calcify, break off, and get into the bloodstream, causing death by heart attack or stroke…is that true? I don’t know how it could get into the bloodstream, but would like to know. Our vet just said "emboli." I’ve also read that dogs can just "throw a clot" causing the same kinds of deaths…
We trust our vet, she was wonderful with all our dogs, and we have no reason to believe anything preventable occured during the prep for the procedure.

When we got our dogs, we didn’t know about the need to do teeth cleaning – so we didn’t, beyond giving them healthy dental chews, hard food, etc. By the time we knew how important it was, they were adults and not about to have us poking around in their mouths, so we had our vet keep an eye on their teeth. We were told in the fall our dog should have her teeth cleaned in the next few months, so we scheduled the procedure for after the holidays. Needless to say, we feel awful about this…