Home Dental Care

Aug 24, 2024 | Patient Info, Pet Advice

 
A healthy mouth is vitally important for your pets comfort and general health and making sure their teeth and gums are healthy starts at home.

This can be a simple as inspecting your pets mouth, gums and teeth regularly at home, and arranging a dental check if you notice any changes.

Acting early when problems are detected will make a huge difference and effect long term outcomes.

Dental Hygiene

It’s recommended that you start dental hygiene maintenance for your pet as early as possible in their life (or soon after a recent dental procedure) to reduce the development of tartar and progressive dental inflammation.

Depending on your pet’s temperament and general health, we may recommend a variety of home care options including:

  • training your pet to have their teeth brushed once daily with a soft toothbrush and pet-safe toothpaste (or water)
  • daily dental chews (preferably with VOHC – Veterinary Oral Health Council – accreditation)
  • prescription dental diets
Watch a short video explaining how dental disease effects your pets and how a simple dental diet could help. https://youtu.be/90T23NiOp-c
Brushing
  • Regular / daily tooth rushing can help when there is minimal gum disease
  • Take time to get your pet used to mouth examinations before trying to brush teeth.
  • Soft finger brushes and specialized tooth pastes can also help
  • It is not for every pet, and a time is often needed to train your pet to accept brushing, but the benefit can be huge
  • Some tooth pastes have added benefits such as enzymes that help fight bacteria and break down plaque build up

Dental Diets
  • Form an important form of dental hygiene,
  • Is probably the easiest way to help your pets.
  • Transition slowly onto any new diet and don’t give up too early
  • Our favourite is Dental Care T/D which has a specially designed fibre atrix which helps to clean the tooth as it bites through the biscuit, without crumbling.
It is not just the size of dental diets it is how they are made that helps with teeth cleaning (as seen in the video above)
Dental treats and chews
  • Some provide mechanical cleaning, by removal of plaque by chewing
  • Others can provide biological cleaning by preventing bacterial build up and damage
  • Examples include, Prozyme dentastix, Oravet, Greenies

 

Dental Rinses

  • These can help where gingivitis is present

Other options that may help
  • Water additives