When puppies are young, their teeth are white and beautiful. With proper dental hygiene and regular veterinary dental care, regular maintenance can help to make sure that your pet does not suffer infection, pain and disease.

During your pet’s 6 month or yearly physical exam, your vet will check its teeth. The vet can do a cursory. This is not a full dental exam and cannot always find pockets of infection between teeth and gums.

By starting early with home dental care and regular dental maintenance by your vet, your dog can live a healthier, more comfortable, longer life with beautiful, healthy gums and teeth.

You can do your part to keep your pet’s mouth healthy by brushing the canines and incisors with a brush and pet toothpaste, premolars can be maintained by brushing and providing dental care specific diet and dental chews. The molars at the back are best kept healthy with the aid of dental biscuits. The added advantage of dental chews, biscuits and dental beneficial diet are promotion of healthy gums, keeping the build-up of tartar to a minimum and freshened breath.

Things to look out for

If your pet has damaged teeth that need to be removed, it must be done. Such damage can mean further infection later.

Most dogs don’t have serious problems after tooth extractions. They can usually continue to chew with the remaining teeth. Even in the case of a dog that has no teeth, it is still not a problem. Dogs can eat quickly and do little chewing in the process. But it is better to avoid the expense and the pain your dog might experience, by practicing good oral hygiene at home and having a proper dental exam regularly.

Signs you can look for of dental disease in your dog are; bad breath, red or inflamed gums, swelling under the eye which could mean an abscess, pawing around the mouth, excessive drooling, bleeding or lumps in the gums, yellowing or darkening in color of teeth from plaque or tartar build-up or both and loss of appetite

Tartar and Plaque

Tartar on human teeth poses the same risk as it does to your dog’s teeth. Harmful bacteria begins to grow, causing dental problems like gum disease and gingivitis in dogs, gingivitis, periodontal disease, abscesses, or lost teeth, and bad dog breath.

As tartar builds along the gum line, it pushes gums away from teeth, exposing the roots, no longer covered by enamel, causing pain and discomfort. Harmful bacteria, does not only stay in the mouth but can go into the bloodstream, making it’s way to the organs, which can cause serious health problems.

Prevention

To eliminate dental plaque, brush your dog’s teeth on a daily or weekly basis. Give your dog dental treats to chew on, quality chews that help scrape off soft plaque deposits on dog teeth. Vets also offer professional cleaning and scaling for your dog’s teeth.

One of the key benefits to keeping your dog chewing is the maintenance of good dental hygiene. Plaque naturally builds up on teeth over time, which, if not removed, hardens and forms tartar. This increases the risk of periodontal and gum disease. At this stage, your dog’s teeth will have yellowed and may be coming loose, and his breath won’t be smelling too fresh, to put it mildly. It is also possible at this stage for bacteria to enter the bloodstream and damage the dog’s organs. All very nasty, but also very avoidable. The good news is that the act of chewing helps prevent this chain of events by scraping the tooth surfaces clean, preventing the build-up of plaque in the first place.