Kris­tel Marie Ram­nath

Bad breath in pets, par­tic­u­lar­ly dogs, is of­ten joked about; but it is not a laugh­ing mat­ter. Den­tal dis­ease af­fects up to 80 per cent of pets over the age of three, and just like hu­mans, there can be se­ri­ous con­se­quences of poor den­tal health.

Dogs and cats are born with no teeth but start to de­vel­op de­cid­u­ous (ba­by) teeth from two to four weeks of age. Dogs start out with 28 de­cid­u­ous teeth while cats start out with 26. Be­tween four to six months of age, these ba­by teeth fall out and are re­placed by per­ma­nent teeth, 42 in the dog and 30 in the cat. If the de­cid­u­ous teeth do not fall out and the per­ma­nent teeth erupt un­der them, this can lead to prob­lems such as in­creased tar­tar for­ma­tion, mal­oc­clu­sion prob­lems and gin­gi­val (gum) ir­ri­ta­tion. Teething is one main rea­son for chew­ing in pup­pies-this be­hav­iour helps to ease some of the dis­com­fort caused when teeth erupt from the gums. Keep a bas­ket of toys handy and ro­tate toys each week to avoid bore­dom. Fris­bees and balls are good for throw­ing and fetch­ing; den­tal chews and rope toys help keep teeth clean by sim­u­lat­ing floss­ing; squeaky toys en­cour­age in­de­pen­dent play be­cause the noise feed­back ex­cites the dog and helps in the de­vel­op­ment of hunt­ing skills by im­i­tat­ing a prey item "dy­ing". Toys do not need to be ex­pen­sive: co­conut husks, sticks and branch­es, card­board box­es, plas­tic bot­tles emp­ty or filled with peb­bles or dried food, make good sub­sti­tutes and can amuse a dog for hours on end.

Al­ways su­per­vise with toys to en­sure your pup­py does not swal­low in­ap­pro­pri­ate items which can cause chok­ing or in­testi­nal ob­struc­tion. Cats should al­so be pro­vid­ed with a va­ri­ety of toys. Some cats pre­fer toys that they can throw around them­selves. Oth­er cats pre­fer toys that re­quire own­er par­tic­i­pa­tion, such as kit­ty teasers and cat dancers. Stim­u­lat­ing play for a cat in­volves op­por­tu­ni­ties to "hunt" so move toys in such a way that they mim­ic the move­ments of a ro­dent or bird. In­tro­duce new toys pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly to keep the cat in­ter­est­ed in play­ing. Fish­ing rod type toys and feath­er toys are good, which the hu­man can dan­gle, en­cour­ag­ing the cat to jump and chase the toys. Pro­vide ob­jects for your cat to ex­plore, such as a card­board box, a pa­per shop­ping bag, pack­ing pa­per, or toys that en­cour­age the cat to in­ves­ti­gate var­i­ous holes with her paws. Bad breath is of­ten a first in­di­ca­tor of den­tal dis­ease. Gen­tly lift the lips of your pet and check for tar­tar, in­flamed gums, or miss­ing/bro­ken teeth. Cats may ex­hib­it in­creased drool­ing. Both cats and dogs can ex­hib­it re­luc­tance to eat or play with toys; "chat­ter­ing" of the teeth when try­ing to eat; lethar­gy, bleed­ing gums, erod­ed teeth and fail­ing to groom (cats).

Den­tal dis­ease pro­gress­es in stages. If caught ear­ly, you can pre­vent fur­ther dam­age and save as many teeth as pos­si­ble. In­fect­ed gums and teeth are not just a prob­lem in the mouth-the heart, kid­neys, in­testi­nal tract and joints may al­so be in­fect­ed. The tar­tar and any in­fect­ed ar­eas of the mouth con­tain a mul­ti­tude of bac­te­ria that can spread to oth­er parts of the body.

With a new pup­py or kit­ten, talk to your an­i­mal be­hav­iourist or your reg­is­tered vet­eri­nar­i­an at the vac­ci­na­tion ap­point­ments on how to ini­ti­ate a good den­tal care pro­gramme at home. Vet­eri­nar­i­ans should pro­vide brush­ing lessons, and many re­tail brush­es and tooth­paste specif­i­cal­ly for dogs and cats. (NOTE: do not use hu­man tooth­paste on your pet-this is tox­ic to an­i­mals! If you can­not ob­tain ca­nine or fe­line tooth­paste you can make a paste with bak­ing so­da and wa­ter). Brush­ing should be dai­ly or at least once a week. Healthy crunchy foods such as ap­ples and car­rots can be added to your pet's di­et to help clean the teeth. If your pet is an adult over three years of age, it would be wise to sched­ule a den­tal check up with your vet­eri­nar­i­an. If a den­tal clean­ing is nec­es­sary, it is ad­vis­able to do pre-anes­the­sia blood work to make sure your pet does not have any un­der­ly­ing prob­lems and to re­duce any risks pos­si­ble pri­or to the anes­the­sia. Many pets with bad teeth will be put on an an­tibi­ot­ic a few days pri­or to den­tal work to calm the in­fec­tion and re­duce pos­si­bil­i­ty of com­pli­ca­tions. Your pet will be fast­ed from the evening be­fore for the anes­the­sia. The pro­ce­dure it­self is sim­i­lar to a hu­man den­tal clean­ing-tar­tar re­moval, check­ing for cav­i­ties, gin­gi­val (gum) pock­ets, loose teeth, any growths on the gums or palate, re­moval of dis­eased teeth, and fi­nal­ly, pol­ish­ing. The pol­ish­ing is to smooth the tooth af­ter tar­tar re­moval, as the tar­tar pits the tooth. A smooth tooth will not en­cour­age tar­tar for­ma­tion as eas­i­ly as a rough­ened tooth. With good den­tal care, your pet can en­joy a long and healthy life, and you can en­joy his/her lick­ing and kiss­ing with­out hold­ing your nose.