Tips can help with brushing dogs’ teeth
At our animal clinic, we receive hundreds of questions every day. Here are a few common ones that you may find helpful.
Question: How do I brush my dog’s teeth, and how often should I do it?
Answer: Proper dental care will prevent the plaque and calculus that can accumulate on teeth, which will eventually cause gingivitis, halitosis, periodontitis and even tooth loss. Two out of every three dogs have periodontitis by the time they are 4 years old — probably because brushing their teeth isn’t always fun!
Ideally, you would brush your dog’s teeth daily, but a more realistic goal is two to three times per week. They should have their teeth cleaned professionally by their veterinarian annually.
It’s a good idea to use your fingers to touch around their faces, lips, ears and even in their mouths when they are young, to acclimate them to our touch in these areas, because some dogs certainly dislike it. If we can desensitize them to this at a young age, it makes brushing their teeth, cleaning their ears or giving them medicine later in life much easier.
Use a veterinary toothpaste, because they are formulated so that your pet can swallow it. Do not use human toothpastes or baking soda. The toothpaste that we use most often for dogs is poultry-flavored, and most look forward to brushing with it as a treat.
We like the “finger brush” for our patients. It fits over your index finger with soft bristles at the tip. It is less cumbersome than a toothbrush and allows more dexterity to get to all the surfaces of the teeth. Use a pea-sized amount of toothpaste, and use small circular motions to brush the teeth. We want brushing to be a positive experience for your dog; it should only take about one minute.
For the dogs that completely resent the idea of toothbrushing, try chewy dental treats made to help scrub away plaque. Be sure to use the correct size
dental treat for your dog’s weight according to the treat’s label. We want them to have to chew the treat for a minute or two.
When we used too-small treats for our pets, Griffin and Betsy, they just gulped them down like a shark with zero benefit to the teeth!
Q: What lumps and bumps do I have to worry about on my pet?
A: Because even relatively safe, benign bumps can initially appear the same as gravely dangerous ones, all lumps and bumps should be checked by your veterinarian.
There are some qualities about bumps we look for during a physical examination that make us feel more comfortable about the situation. We like for the bumps to have very distinct margins. It’s good to be able to feel the edge of the bump, rather than have it blend or fade into adjacent tissue.
It’s also good to be able to get your fingers under it to lift it up with the skin, because we are hoping that the bump is confined to just the skin rather than attached to deeper structures. We also check lymph nodes in the area for size. We want the lymph node nearest to the bump to be similar in size and shape as the same lymph node on your pet’s opposite side.
After the physical examination, your veterinarian will use a needle and syringe to attempt to get a sample of the cells or material that is inside the bump. Doing this is usually no more painful than receiving a vaccine. Once the needle is inside the bump, we use the syringe to pull some material back up inside the needle. We take that material and examine it under the microscope. In most cases, we can give a diagnosis right then, but sometimes we do send the sample to a lab for confirmation of the diagnosis.
Fatty tumors, called lipomas, are one of the most commonly encountered bumps. Lipomas normally grow on your pet’s trunk, and not usually on their limbs. They are made of fat and most of the time they feel just like that — a lump of fat. When we obtain the sample of a lipoma, we even will see greasy, fatty goo on the microscope slide.
A vast majority of lipomas are benign, but they can grow very large and be uncomfortable for your pet to carry around. Sometimes lipomas can grow in such a way that they affect how your pet walks or how they can lay down comfortably. Your veterinarian will recommend removal in situations such as that.
Drs. Josh and Marya Teders are the owners of Northarlington Animal Clinic in Upper Arlington. To ask them a question, email talking@dispatch. com.
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