Caring For Your Pets Teeth

Dental Home Care

The first picture shows a normal mouth. The teeth are clean and white and there is no redness or swelling in the surrounding gums. With gingivitis (the second picture), the gum is clearly red and swollen (there is also yellowish brown tartar extending down the length of the tooth). The third picture shows the third stage of periodontal disease where up to 50% of the bone attachment is lost. Notice the exposure of the tooth roots. 

Gingivitis is reversible. Bone loss, once it starts, is not reversible. 

It is a good idea to become comfortable opening your pet's mouth and looking inside. Lift the lip and look at the teeth, especially the back teeth. Open the mouth and look at the inside of the teeth and at the tongue. If you have pets of different ages, compare what you see inside.

 Look in your pet's mouth and identify the line of gingival attachment. Approximately 70% of the tooth should be under the gum line.

Regular Professional Cleaning

Schedule Dental Care

It is important to note that a "non-anesthetic" teeth cleaning is not comparable to the above service. 

It is not possible to perform the "six step" cleaning in a pet without general anesthesia. 

Cosmetic cleanings do not address periodontal disease where it occurs: under the gum line. 

Home Care Products 

Toothpaste and Brushing 

Just as with your own teeth, nothing beats brushing. The fibers of the toothbrush are able to reach between teeth and under gums to pick out tiny deposits of food. A toothbrush acts as a tiny scrub brush for the closest possible cleaning. 

Canine and feline toothbrushes conform to a pet's mouth. You can use a human toothbrush but you will probably find it difficult to manipulate in the pet's mouth. Never use a human toothpaste for a pet as these contain sudsing agents (people like to see foam when they brush their teeth) that are not meant to be swallowed in quantity.

Animal toothpastes come in pet-preferred flavors (chicken, seafood, and malt) in addition to the more human-appreciated mint and all are expected to be swallowed. 

Finger brushes are available and are smaller for puppies and kittens. 

Studies have shown that brushing three times a week was adequate to maintain healthy teeth and gums but daily brushing was needed to control existing gingivitis.

Do's and Don'ts of Brushing Your Pet's Teeth

• Don't use human toothpaste on your pet.
  
• Do use a toothbrush without any paste at first so that your pet may get used to the object in the mouth before having to contend with flavor.
  
• Don't attempt to clean the inner surface of your pet's teeth. Natural saliva cleans this surface on its own.
  
• Do try to perform dental home care at least once daily. 
• Don't perform dental home care during the first week after a full dentistry in the hospital as your pet's gums may be tender.
  
• Don't consider dental home care as an alternative to full dental cleaning if your pet has more advanced dental disease. 

Dental Wipes, Rinses and Pads

Some animals, especially those with tender gums, will not tolerate brushing but are more amenable to disinfecting wipes or pads.  

These products will wipe off plaque deposits from the surface of the tooth and, though they lack the ability to pick food particles out of the gum socket, they are probably the next best thing to brushing and, like brushing, these products are best used daily.  

Dental Treats
For many people, doing anything inside their pet's mouth on a regular basis is simply never going to happen. Fortunately, all is not lost: chewing on a proper dental chew can reduce plaque by up to 69%. This may not be as good as brushing but it certainly beats doing nothing. There are many products available for both dogs and cats. How often does the pet need to chew? One study using the Pedigree Dentabone showed excellent results but dogs were provided with a chew bone six days a week. Many dogs are not as interested in chewing.  

Not all chews are alike. Chewing provides abrasion against the tooth removing plaque and tartar. Some chews and biscuits include the ingredient hexametaphosphate, which prevents the mineralization of plaque into tartar. (In one study, two such biscuits daily removed 46% of tartar in time.) The Forte feline chews were found effective in reducing plaque and tartar but cats had to eat one chew daily to achieve benefit. 

Greenies
This particularly popular chew treat has generated some recent controversy and deserves some mention. The Greenie is a green chew treat for dogs, found effective in removing plaque and is generally found highly palatable to dogs. Original Greenies were made with wheat gluten, which dissolved slowly in the stomach. Some pets swallowed large chunks of a Greenie, the Greenie failed to dissolve in the stomach and intestinal obstruction resulted. There were some deaths reported.  

Since then, the Greenie has been reformulated using soy instead of wheat. The new Greenie is actually flexible and its manufacturer feels past problems have been resolved. The new formulation came out mid-2006 and is available in both canine and feline treats. Both are approved by the Veterinary Oral Health Council, a group that awards its seal of approval to treats and diets showing scientific evidence of plaque and tartar retardation. 

See a list of the VOHC's currently approved products:   http://www.vohc.org/accepted_products.htm 

Use your judgment with chew toys.  

A chew can be readily swallowed in a large chunk and lead to intestinal obstruction.

A pet with diseased teeth may break teeth on a hard chew. 

Cow hooves and bones are not appropriate chew toys as they are too hard and readily break teeth.  

Pig ears are well loved by most dogs and have been known to have bacterial contamination. Dogs with sensitive stomachs often do not tolerate the smoky flavor.

No studies have been performed regarding prevention of dental disease using pig ear chews. 
 

Dental Diets
There is a common misconception that simply feeding a kibbled diet will protect teeth from dental disease. Consider what it would be like to attempt to replace brushing your own teeth with eating crunchy foods and it is easy to see how ineffective this method would be. When it comes to pet foods, much of the kibble is swallowed whole and not chewed at all.  

Clearly, there must be more to a dental diet than simple kibbling and in fact there is. Dental diets on the market today use several techniques to help reduce plaque. The first is that the kibbles are very large, which means the pet must chew them before swallowing them. These diets are high in fiber, which means the kibbles do not shatter when chewed but instead the tooth sinks into the kibble allowing plaque to be essentially scrubbed away.  

The large kibbles may pose an acceptance problem for the pet, leading the owner to use them as treats or mixed with other kibbles. The smaller the percentage of the diet these kibbles represent, the less benefit will be reaped. It is also important to realize that these diets are helpful only in cleaning the molars and premolars (i.e. the chewing teeth) and do not help the fangs or incisors.  

The Porphyromonas (Periodontal) Vaccine
This vaccine represents the newest tool in the prevention of periodontal disease. It was released by Pfizer in early 2007 for use in dogs only, after nearly half a million test doses administered and studied. The targets here are the anaerobic bacteria responsible for bone destruction in advanced periodontal disease. There are hundreds of bacteria involved in periodontal disease but three species in particular are present in three-quarters of cases: Porphyromonas denticanis, Porphyromonas salivosa, and Porphyromonas gulae. These are bone-eating anaerobic bacteria and the vaccine against them helps to reduce bone loss in more severe cases of periodontal disease.  

The vaccine is NOT a replacement for other modes of home care and certainly does not prevent periodontal disease. It is given as an introductory series of two vaccines at 3 weeks apart and annually thereafter. Ideally it is given when the mouth is healthy (i.e. a few weeks after cleaning or in younger patients).

At this time it is not considered a core vaccine by the American Animal Hospital Association, which means it is not felt to be a basic need for every dog, although many veterinary dentists dispute this and we may see in time that it becomes part of every dog's basic immunization protocol. At the time of this writing, the duration of immunity from vaccination with this product has not been determined.