Dental Care for Dogs and Cats
by Susan Wynn, DVM
The High Points
- Unless you are brushing your pet's teeth as many times daily as you do your own, your pet is going to need special dental care
- Dirty teeth and unhealthy gums are serious health risks
- "Dental diets" help a little; regular dry pet food isn't very effective
- Some special dental treats help
- Brushing three or more times weekly is best
- The "natural" method of dental care is feeding a variety of bones, but you risk endangering your pet with perforated bowel, obstruction, or fractured teeth
Introduction
Could you get through a day feeling good if you had never, in your life, brushed your teeth? If our pets reach the age of six years without any dental care, it has been estimated that 80% have gingivitis or some other sort of dental disease.
Lack of dental care means more than bad breath and that feeling of having "sweaters on your teeth." Buildup of tartar and bacteria causes a veritable cesspool from which the blood stream drains infection. These bacteria may go to all organs of the body and cause serious infections. Heart and kidney infections, among others, may be life threatening; this is why dental care is much more than a cosmetic concern.
If your pet has bad breath, tooth stains, or even chronic sinusitis in older animals, chances are that s/he has dental disease. Your veterinarian can check oral health during a physical exam and may recommend a dental cleaning. Since tartar and calculus cannot be brushed away, ultrasonic scaling, polishing and extractions may be required. A dental necessitates anesthesia because the scaler causes a tickling and warming sensation on the tooth, and subgingival curettage (scraping under the gums) may even be painful. A dental is a short procedure, however, and with today's safe anesthetics, should not be a major cause for concern.
Since it is preferable to avoid anesthetic procedures wherever possible, preventive measures are particularly important. Veterinarians recommend tooth brushing, mouthwashes, and special tartar control diets. Most also recommend dry commercial diets, but holistic veterinarians have found that dry diets not only do nothing to help the teeth, they may contribute to other problems, as well. Think of it this way—if your dentist recommended daily granola and pretzels to scrape the tartar away, would you buy it? Dry food is actually just hard enough to lodge under the gums, and provide the perfect breeding ground for tartar causing bacteria. Many veterinarians also recommend rawhide chews, and a recent study indicated that rawhide chews prevent tartar better than dry dog biscuits, as well.
One of the best dental health measures for animals is a regular treat of very rare, very tough meat. Although this may surprise you, tough cuts such as stew beef or chuck steaks actually contain large amounts of connective tissue that act like dental floss! Meaty bones seem to help scrape some tartar away. Recently, raw meat has come under fire as a source of serious bacterial infections. To avoid this problem, meat can be quickly blanched—30 seconds in boiling water—to kill organisms on the surface. This leaves the tough interior intact, but kills most bacteria. (Internal parasites, such as toxoplasmosis, are not killed with this treatment, and this is a consideration in immune-suppressed pets and people).
Many pets do well with a treat of "chunk" meat once or twice weekly, although some still need regular tooth brushing. Be careful not to let your pet convince you that s/he needs meat all the time, however, since this may cause dangerous nutritional imbalances. Large dogs need chunks big enough to prevent swallowing whole. Suggested cuts are stew beef, lamb shanks and beef knuckle bones; for smaller dogs and cats, poultry hearts and gizzards work well. Chicken and turkey necks are also fine for small dogs and cats, but be sure to watch any pet eating a bone, carefully to make sure they aren't crunching the bones or breaking their teeth!
Brushing is still necessary for many animals. Toothpastes which tempt dogs and cats to tolerate this procedure may have chicken, liver and poultry flavors, so look for these (and don't use human toothpaste). Most animals need to be convinced that brushing is a good thing, so talk to your veterinarian about gradual training procedures to make this process easier on you and your pet.
Old dogs can learn new tricks!
References
Watson, ADJ, 1994. Diet and periodontal disease in dogs and cats. Aust Vet J, 71:313-318.
Lage A, Lausen N, Tracy R, and Allred E, 1990. Effect of chewing rawhide and cereal biscuit on removal of dental calculus in dogs. JAVMA, 197(2): 213
Brown MG and Park JF, 1968. Control of dental calculus in experimental beagles. Laboratory Animal Care, 18(5): 527
