Doggy Dental Care Update

Nothing causes bad breath like plaque and gingivitis (redness and swelling of the gums most often caused by bacterial plaque).  Soft foods and a dog that does’t love to chew is a recipe for teeth and gums needing a cleaning.  Are you reluctant in having your dog put under anesthesia for dental care?  If so, you will want to do more than just brushing.

You can take your dogs dental care in your own hands.  Many dog catalogs offer tooth brushes, toothpaste for dogs and tooth  ’scalers’.  The use of a scaler in addition to regular brushing will help immensely.  It’s easy to do if your dog is already used to you handling its mouth for brushing.  Just start with one tooth per session to ease the dog into it.  There are how to articles for scaling on the net.  If you haven’t been brushing  then learn to brush your dogs teeth – there are some good articles on the internet about how to do that as well.

Always start with brushing before moving to the scaler!  This is because your dog needs to trust you with his teeth over time.  There are some terrific tasting doggy toothpastes out there (don’t use human tooth paste!).  Again, I recommend you START with brushing before ever trying to perform scaling.

Your first few ‘brushings’ may actually be more about the dog chewing the paste off the dog brush.  Over time and days of continued attempts, your dog will eventually let you begin to work on his teeth because he will trust that you won’t hurt him.  Remember this, always be careful to not accidentally cause your dog discomfort!  If you make that mistake, it will be difficult to approach him again.  The good tasting dog toothpaste is his reward as you brush.

It is always best to ask your Vet for advice on how to brush / scale your dogs teeth.

In order to get your dog ready for brushing, examine your dogs teeth gently every time he is sitting with you watching TV.  Get him use to the idea that you will occasionally peek inside his mouth.  Also, touch his gums or teeth with your finger (if they are aren’t painful!).  Basically just fiddle around with his mouth over time.  This will set up the first brushing and later scaling.

Professional scaling is always best but I often worry about my dog being under anesthesia.  Dogs have died while under general anesthesia for simple procedures.   If you are a DIY type person, you can scale your dogs teeth all by yourself.  Lots of folks do it or they wouldn’t sell the scalers in almost every dog catalog!  Deep scaling (under the gum line) is ALWAYS best done by your Vet but if you stay ahead of plaque, deep cleaning probably won’t be necessary.

Get treats for your dog that are advertised as teeth cleaning.  We like to use Science Diet’s “Td” dog food.  It’s a large kibble that cleans as they eat it.  It’s not intended for complete nutrition so keep using your dog food too.  They make two sizes, one for small dogs and one for all other dogs.  My Vet tech Cathy encouraged me to try it 5 or so years ago and since then, we have great dental hygiene!  Per Cathy’s recommendation, I put a handful (my hand holds about 5 or 6 kibbles) in with their food several times a week.

The other thing we do here at Chief’s Brittanys is we give our dogs a large beef knuckle once a month.  The beef knuckle is cooked and a bit messy but your bird dog will love it!  The knuckle has lots of hard cartilage and bone marrow that your dog will work hard to find and eat, using all its teeth.  Once the cartilege and marrow is gone, I throw the remaining bone away.  Do this once a month and you’ll be surprised as to how clean their teeth are with the addition of the aforementioned Td’s.  NOTE:  If you are doing this for the first time you may note what looks like blood on the knuckle.  This is often (not always) normal if your dog has mild to severe gingivitis.  I liken it to human gums.  If you don’t brush regular, you get red gums (gingivitis)  instead of the nice pink color that a good brusher has.  When the person with red gums does brush, the gums bleed and so it is with a dog.  Do examine your dogs mouth regularly particularly if you see blood or anything that seems out of place / abnormal.  I Always default to my Vets!

Take care and give your dog a Td / knuckle treat for me!

Dave