Today, we’re going to answer some questions on dentals, doing dentals on your dog, dental disease in your dogs and cats and let’s see what some of the questions are.
Many of you are writing in and wondering why your pet has bad breath, well, lots of reasons. Some dogs, puppies especially just have what I call doggy breath, that’s the way it is. It’s probably going to be something that’s not real pleasant, but if you’re starting to get really bad breath, you probably want to start looking at your pet’s teeth and when you look at their teeth, they should look like—or should like which is nice and white. They should be clean, they shouldn’t have a lot of tartar buildup on them and if you’re starting to see these type of things, then number one, you’re not doing a very good job at home of taking care of them, and number two, you probably need to have those teeth cleaned with any diseases going on in the mouth.
So always be checking your dog’s mouth, looking at the teeth, seeing what’s going on and it’s just a good sign of the health of your pets. So I think it’s a real good idea that you check them out all the time and if you need more information on that, you can always check our website at PetDoctorsofAmerica.com.
Yeah, a lot of people want to know why I should I take my dog into the veterinarian to have the teeth cleaned and then we talked about anesthetizing an animal to have their teeth cleaned, well, I’ll be real honest, most people are not doing a good job at home of cleaning their dog’s teeth, brushing their teeth, doing the things that are necessary. We spend two or three times a day brushing our teeth, flossing them and doing all these types of things and I would guess, most of you out there probably are not doing that.
So, it just comes to reason that if you’re not taking care of your dog’s teeth, they’re probably going to have some problems, so what happens with dogs and cats is once they get to a position where they’ve got a lot of tartar on their teeth, then it’s time to have them cleaned and the only way to get them cleaned properly is to ultrasonic scale them and polish them.
If we’re going to do that, we need to have the animal anesthetized to do it properly. I have yet to see a dog or cat that wants to open its mouth and let us go in with instruments like that without an anesthesia. I know a lot of you are fearful of anesthesia. There’s always risk. I certainly would not say it’s without risk, but done right with some blood work previously to make sure that the organs are all healthy, if the animal has a good heart, I truly believe the risks are very minimal and as long as good anesthetics are used, you can certainly have this done with very little risk, and I think the advantages far outweigh any type of risk that you’re going to see with any type of anesthesia having this type of work done and you can also go to our website at Pet Doctors of America and just read more about the types of anesthesia we’re using and the different ways that we handle these types of things.
If you don’t want to bring your dog into the veterinarian as often to have his teeth cleaned, all you have to do is do stuff at home and if you’re cleaning your dog’s teeth properly, brushing them, taking care of them, you probably won’t have to have dentals done quite as often. Now, it doesn’t mean, you’ll never have to have them done. I brush my teeth numerous times a day, but I still go to the dentist, so you’re still going to want to have those teeth checked out and they still may need to be clean, but you might be able to delay that process for a few years, you might be able to do it every two years instead of every year, but it’s certainly going to help. The number one thing you want to do is you want to just brush your dog’s teeth. Sounds silly, but a lot of people do it and you need to do it. It’s the only way to get the food off the teeth every day, keep the tartar from building up and you can brush your teeth on a dog with any type of a toothbrush. They make toothbrushes for dogs, they’re a little softer, always use a soft brush. You want to use a small one and any type of toothpaste is fine. If you use toothpaste that we’re using, the dog’s probably not going to like it. They’re not really into the fluoride and the taste of that and they’re probably going to slobber and fight you, so they make toothpaste that dogs like. You can get that at our veterinary clinic. You can order it online at PetDoctorsofAmerica.com, so it’s very easy to get a hold of that stuff and then some other things you want to do is use treats that actually have chlorhexidine in it. Chlorhexidine is an antiseptic and there’s a CET chew that you can get from us or online once again at Pet Doctors of America and when they chew into this, it actually breaks open and chlorhexidine, an antiseptic is released in the mouth and it just helps keep that mouth clean and get rid of a lot of the bacterial infection and things that are building up, and those are some things that you can do that will really help your pet’s teeth and mouth stay a lot better. I’ve had a lot of you ask about the different type of foods for their teeth. I wouldn’t say there’s any one food that’s better than others, there are some actual foods made for dogs with bad teeth, it’s TD—it’s a product by Hills and that particular product is a large, hard and chunky kibble and so when they bite into it, it kind of helps knock the tartar off the teeth and that’s a product once again you can get from us.
You can certainly get it online at PetDoctorsofAmerica.com and that product will help keep some of the tartar off. My recommendation to people is use dry food. Dry food always is better, it’s going to help keep the teeth clean, canned food—you’re going to get built up, more tartar. You’re going to get built up with a canned food itself because it sits up into the gum, so stick with the dry foods, they’re better for your pet, they’re better for the GI system and certainly better for the mouth, but no one particular food is really going to benefit you by using it just for the teeth themselves.
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