The Importance of Doggie Dental Hygiene

I never knew how important dental hygiene is for our best friends. I’ve had dogs all my life and never knew you should brush their teeth. I did share my fudgesicle with my burro when I was a kid and then used my sisters toothbrush to brush his teeth. She never could figure out how her toothbrush got green.Hmmm wonder if that’s why she fixed me the paint sandwich. Could be. But that is as close to animal oral hygiene as I ever got.  But now I know alot. My chihuahua Pepe has taught me an important lesson that the vet says far to many people are unaware of. So I thought I would spread the word. Pepe’s breath got really bad. I said it was cause small dogs butts are so close to their mouths. Well science has proved me wrong. Then I noticed one of his teeth had fallen out. He is only 5 at this time.  My vet says to brush his teeth with a Q-tip dipped in baking soda. Oh yeh that went over real well. Then pepe started getting sick. He would throw up and have diarrhea and would not eat. Being a 7 pound dog dehydration was a major concern. My vet who was oldschool ( but a great vet none the less) gave him a shot to settle his stomach and he would be fine for awhile.  During this time my vet got cancer and closed his pratice. Time for a new vet. My daughters friends mom worked for a vet so off we went to him. Never did he mention teeth. Just before Christmas Pepe got very ill. He had bloody diarrhea and was dehydrating. Off to the vet.  Well he has a stomach parasite they say. Will cost you $1000 to take care of him. After I picked my self up off the floor we got the cost down to $300. Which I could afford but so much for Christmas. So off they whisked Pepe and hooked him up to an IV and gave him fluids and antibiotics. We got to bring him home on Christmas Eve. Two weeks later he was sick again. Never any mention about his teeth.  So off to a new vet. Well actually he had been my dogs vet years ago. I had great respect for him as he saved my dogs life once.  He has bad teeth. He needs them cleaned. Just like people who have bad teeth it can cause animals all kind of health problems too. So Pepe gets a shot of fluid under his skin to help with hydration and a shot of antibiotics. We set up an appointment to get his teeth cleaned and the bad ones pulled. It cost less than $200 and guess what. Pepe is much better. No more diarrhea. He still has tummy problems once in a while but I think that is just chihuahua metabolism. My vet says that people are so unaware of this problem. So now we brush our dogs teeth. Have you ever tried to brush a pitbull/labrador mixes teeth. Yeh that’s lots of fun. We give them dental dog chews. (Don’t use greenies. They are dangerous) Just good old dog biscuits that are hard and hard dog food. It helps to remove plague and clean their teeth. So if your doggie gets bad breath and starts having health issues have your vet check his teeth. It could he as simple as having his teeth cleaned.

Well off to think off more things to write about. Till next time this is CC Ryder signing off.