Fish breath
Last year, after the vet showed us how awful Data’s teeth were, we shelled out the big bucks to get them cleaned. He came home with wonderful breath (although he was a bit loopy from the anesthesia) and we immediately bought a little cat toothbrush and toothpaste kit, promising ourselves we would keep his teeth clean.
Ha. Ha ha.
It’s over a year later now, and we are both noticing how awful Data’s breath is. You don’t want to sit within a five foot radius of him, in case he yawns (the same could be said about me and my stinky feet*). So we busted out the teeth cleaning kit for the first time this Sunday, after we had already tortured him by clipping his nails.
Data looks very enthusiastic, doesn’t he?
Steven started by holding him and attempting to use the brush. When that didn’t work, he resorted to using the finger brush and pinning Data on the floor.
I gave Data a big kiss this morning and his breath seemed better! Maybe it’s all in my head though.
What do you do to keep your pet’s teeth clean? Does your pet require any other special treatment?
*But maybe the radius should be extended to 10 feet? What do you think, Steven?
Themocracy
I need to brush my dog’s teeth. If we’re sitting on the floor and she gets too close to us the smell is, urm, overwhelming. I now lovingly call her “breath mint”.
I can’t even imagine cleaning Mosie’s teeth! Hilarious!!
Your toothbrush needs more power Tim the Toolman Taylor style. Spinbrush!!!
Lucas has no bad breath at all (never even smelled anything), but I always make sure he goes in for his dental cleaning once a week.
I tried brushing his teeth once. I got a scar on my stomach. Never again.
Lucas gets his teeth cleaned once a week? Is it inexpensive?
How do you clip his nails? Our male cat really needs a nail clipping. Yikes.
Don’t all cats have bad breath? Our cats do. I’ve never done the teeth brushing thing!
We do clip Data’s nails. He only has his back ones 🙁
I keep meaning to get a toothbrush for my dog. I know she’ll hate it, but its for her own good. The vet suggested starting off with just my finger and rubbing her gums while she eats a treat, that way she gets used to the idea and associates it with something good. I of course, completely forgot.
We used to brush my moms dogs teeth though. Shes mean as it is, so Im sure you can imagine how much fun that was. 🙂
Well you know my situation. If I came at Manny with a toothbrush, I am positive I would come out of it with one less limb.
oh my gosh we went through this with my cat!! he actually had to have some teeth removed and had dental problems, but he wouldn’t ever let us brush his teeth
So far so good with my kitty but she’s pretty young so who knows how it’ll be in the future.
Clipping her nails though… gosh, you would think we were torturing her medieval style! Luckily for us she seems to have a very short term memory so after a few minutes all is forgiven :).
Phil has horrible breath and could definitely use a dental cleaning followed by regular tooth brushing. Greyhounds are prone to bad teeth and gums due to their mouth shape. We try to remember to brush his teeth, but we just can’t get in the habit.
As for other special treatment…well, he’s Phil 🙂 He’s the definition of special treatment.
The last three cats in our house have had the worst teeth!!! I’m trying not to take it personal…
I find the: curl the cat in a sideways ball-tuck under your arm trick is the easiest.
Here’s me and my precious nasty-breath cat: http://lifeofkaylen.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-to-brush-your-cats-teeth.html
Data looks like he doesn’t enjoy the teeth cleaning all that much.
Not all in your head at all. Cats and dental care are not all that common. Our cat Rocko just had surgery last Wednesday to remove a couple of teeth, one of which had broken off and was starting to develop an infection. His breath was horrible. Now, it’s not all that bad. Nothing minty fresh, but much better.
We have yet to clean the cat’s teeth… she does have some stinky breath, but not that bad, so we continue to put that off.. cutting her nails is such a hassle, can’t imagine how cleaning her teeth would be!
We’ve kept the cat’s teeth hygiene at a relatively good state (vets always say there’s some plaque but nothing that requires the sedation & cleaning) by using Friskies Dental Diet … unfortunately I recently found out this product has been discontinued! Waaaaaaah! If I’d known, I’d have bought a whole bunch at once to stock up!! 🙁
The vet told me to brush Bodger’s teeth three times a week. (Unfortunately, tooth cleaning under anesthesia isn’t a good option for Frenchies.) I aim for once a week, and he has special plastic, knobbly chew toys to help with plaque control. Bodger has stinky fish breath too because we feed him fancy salmon-based food. Ooh, it’s so bad. Some days, I have to brush his teeth just to deal with it.
I usually just slather toothpaste on the brush and hold his jaws open with my hands. It’s messy.
Hahaha I got the same song and dance at the vet about our dogs but we didn’t spring for the professional cleaning. I’ve got the dog version of brush and paste laying around here…I tried once and it was virtually impossible.
I brush Delilah’s teeth but probably not as often as I should. Her teeth are in pretty good shape though. I think it helps that she only eats dry dog food and the only human food she gets is carrots and a few other random veggies.
If you consider what cats eat and where they lick…it’s no wonder their breath is stinky. 😉 But I know this problem as my vet has had me put Dash on a diet so I can get his teeth cleaned next year. He’s too overweight to have surgery! I used to TRY to brush my dog’s teeth. It was laughable. She just wanted to chew on the brush and eat the peanut butter flavored toothpaste off of it like a chew toy.
Thankfully my boyfriend takes care of the teeth cleaning of our animals. He does a good job of it! We have 1 cat and 1 dog.
Our (indoor) cat doesn have bad breath at all….and we give the dog beef or pork bones whenever we have them and that helps a lot. Clearly left over bones aren’t something you have hanging around though….plus I’m not sure Data would be down with dogisms anyway.
The Greenies breath treats help too, I know they have a cat version of them at the pet store
Data loves Greenies! They are the only treat he likes (in salmon flavor, naturally). I am sure he would be happy if we gave him more 🙂
So far Maya is young enough that her breath smells good. The kids actually go over to her and try to get her to open her mouth so they can smell it. That must be annoying to her now that I think about it!
We do have a toothbrush and are supposed to be using it so she gets used to it and it doesn’t become “a thing” when we actually need to brush them better. We don’t do well at remembering! We do give her a lot of the teeth cleaning treats so maybe it won’t matter? I guess time will tell.