Speaker 1:
Hi, my name is doctor Uri Berston. I’m a veterinarian in Vancouver, BC and I’d like to welcome you to my series of practical skills for pet owners.
Well today we’re going to talk about dental care for dogs. Now toothbrushing is always a good idea and it’s something that you want to start doing quite early with your pen, preferably when they’re a puppy. A Cedric here is about 12 years old and he’s going to help me demonstrate, um, proper tooth brushing technique. Now, ideally you want to have a dog who’s really comfortable, you touching his mouth.
You basically get into this when they’re nice and young. Get your hands in their brochure, fingers against their teeth.
When we start to brush your dog’s teeth, we usually want to get him used to the taste of the toothpaste that tastes toothpastes. We use for pets are usually flavored syrup, basically like giving your dog a treat.
Normally I recommend starting with just some toothpaste on your finger and rubbing it on the teeth up here just to give them a flavor and a taste for it. Then usually you end up with lots of drool and a dog’s chewing on your finger and tuned in a tooth versus it’s really just a big messy game that for them, and it does some good for their teeth. Now how often did brush is something people often ask me and I say as often as you can, you know, brushing your dog’s teeth every day before bed is a great idea. Not everybody’s got the time to do that. And really if you’re doing it once or twice a week, you’re probably ahead of the curve. But as often as you can be. My best advice, so we have some enzymatic flavored doggie toothpaste.
You see Cedric’s showing some interest in it already. Usually they just get a little bit on my finger and litter friend
here. Get a little taste for it. It’s pretty weird, right And then what you want to do is just
start brushing gently just onto the canines. Your goal
is to get back to these molars back here. But it’s the canines are more accessible and once the dog is used to having their canines brush, you can work in the molars and we’re starting to drool, right Cause it tastes good.
Once you have your dog used to the taste of the toothpaste and quite a right with you rubbing your finger on their teeth, what do you do Is you move up to a toothbrush. There’s number of dog toothbrushes in the market. I personally prefer using just a soft baby toothbrush you can get from any convenience store.
Your main idea is to have a soft toothbrush. The you can, your dog, except, which is pretty easy to find any sweetie. Now put a little toothpaste on the toothbrush and a member is, is basically a treat. So we want to rub a little bit just on the canines. You don’t need to brush hard because again, these toothpastes are enzymatic, so they work, but softening up the plaque. There we go. And that’s really all you need to do. You don’t need to worry about brushing incisors on the dog. They’re not really very large teeth. So if you’re doing that, you’re already doing quite well and get clean. Those canines, Now, once the dog is comfortable with the canines being cleaned, you can move on to the molars. And the way you do that is just by lifting the lip up a little bit. Oh, and getting back there just like that, it’s like that. That always helps to get a little bit more of the yummy toothpaste on there city.
Can just get in there and brush, brush, brush, brush, brush those teeth.
There we go. It might take a little while to get up to this point.
Just take your time, make sure it’s fun for the dog. And of course you have to do both sides. If they get in there, just brush, brush, brush,
just like that. Just gently massage their gums. And as you can see, Cedric is having a bit of a lick of a toothbrush
and drooling a lot. So that’s pretty much all there is to, it is busy. Make it a bit of a game, make it a treat for your dog. And most important thing is just take your time, work your way up to brushing those molars just by working your fingers in and working on the canines first, and then work your way back to the molars as your dog allows you. And then you can have a happy dog with clean teeth.
So,
like I said at the beginning of the video, if you can, do this as often as you practically can, even if you’re doing it once or twice a week, you’re still have significant impact on your dog’s oral health. If you find this video useful, please like it and share it and have a good time brushing your dog’s teeth.
