Introducing Dental Care

An article from PET BUSINESS February 2005 Edition

If you go home with new dental care products and try to work on your dog’ or cat’s teeth, the animal is apt to protest. Here are some tips on how to introduce this new care regime:

1. Let your pet see and smell the new product.

2. Sit with the cat or dog and giving it a new command, "Let's brush your teeth," then touch the teeth with the toothbrush (or wipe).

3. Immediately take the brush away and praise your pet, "Brave boy (or girl)! Yeah!"

4. Repeat the command and touch the teeth again, praising again. The animal is being shown that this is not dangerous; it is fun and will be rewarded with lots of praise.

5. Repeat the command and touch, but this time, brush one tooth. Take the brush away and give praise.

6. Repeat this training step at least five times, in different areas of your pet’s mouth, and then stop for the day. Praise your pet well and offer a treat.

Repeat these training steps once a day for several days. At this point, the goal is not to clean teeth but simply get your pet used to the activity.

After several days of practice, begin actually cleaning the teeth but only do one quarter of the mouth. Do another quarter the next day and so on. It may be several weeks before the entire mouth can be done in one cleaning. 

The ultimate situation of course would be to start this process when your pet is a puppy or a kitten, but with patience, even older dogs can be taught to allow a thorough teeth cleaning.