Monday, February 2, 2015

Monday Medical: Pet Dental Health Month

February is Pet Dental Health Month. Did you know that many experts believe dental disease is the number one disease seen by veterinarians? Almost all adult dogs and cats have some form of it.

Wonder how hard it would be to talk Faraday into flossing...?

If you've read my article over on Catster, then you know cats don't get cavities. That's not really a good thing, though. Because what they get instead is something much worse: a disease for which there is no cure, since we simply don't know what causes it. That disease is tooth resorption. You can read more about it here.

"Open wide!" Girl, you're doing it right.

There are a few myths that keep hanging on about dental diseases in our companion animals, and one of them is that it doesn't begin to develop until later in adult years.


Maxwell is living proof that's not true. At 9 months of age, he had his first dental...and lost 12 teeth. Twelve. You can read his story - and more on gingivitis/stomatitis at this link here.

Bottom line: it's never too early to begin good dental hygiene with out pets. And they can never be too young for dental disease to strike.

With aggressive dental treatments at home and at our vet, Maxwell has beaten the odds. They thought he would be toothless by age 5. He'll turn 5 in April.

"Look ma! No cavities!" True, but what about TR? Keep brushing, dood.
We don't know what we'd do without those adorable fangs of yours!

Talk to your vet soon about whether or not your pet should have his teeth cleaned. Many offer discounts during the month of February, in honor of Dental Health Month, so it's a win-win, both for your pocketbook and for your pet!

21 comments:

  1. Truffles toothies look pretty darn good to me but a vet will definitely be checking them out soon!

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  2. Stinky the Farm cat has had a tough tooth life but we do the best we can for her. She still can tear into mousie though....

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  3. I can honestly admit that during my cat lady days, I did not know much about their dental health. Luckily, they all had great chompers. Maxwell looks like a toothpaste model! MOL!

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  4. Wow, that was a lot of teeth to lose so young, actually at any age. This is a great post to bring awareness to the need for dental care.

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  5. What a great post! Thanks for sharing as Dental issues can cause far more health problems later.
    Kisses
    Nellie

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  6. My two black rescues have lost the majority of their teeth. One, Cokie has stomatitis. This is a horrible disease and she became sick with it at the same time she developed a herpes infection in her right eye. The vet gave us prednisolne for the stomatitis and sent us to the animal opthomologist to get the eye treated. One of the five (yes, that's the number 5) medications she was taking cancelled out the prednisolne so we had to give her massive doses of pred. I didn't like it but I wanted a healthy cat. They told us without surgery she would go blind in that eye and possible lose it. Well, with surgery she would be partially blind also. We opted to treat her without surgery and worked very diligently to get her healthy again. Today she is without the herpes and the stomatitis is under control. Whew! It took 2 1/2 months. I started this rant because we will be bringing our new kittens home Wednesday. I want to avoid this with them and the herpes. So one of the things I got for them was a dental kit that has what we need to take care of their teeth. They will not be exposed to herpes because Cokie is now well rid of it, and of the their inoculations prevents it .

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    1. I feel your pain, Sherry!!! Maxie had horrible ear infections (off the charts yeast & bacterial) when we got him. He was also profoundly deaf. It took 5 entire months of medicating him with 3 different ear meds morning and evening, every single day. Groannnnnn.... But we did it!!

      It's totally worth it to do as you did with Cokie. So very glad she had you for an adopter!

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  7. Excellent post and we are so glad you can show off those pearly whites Maxwell.

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  8. My human is a dental health fanatic for herself - she flosses and brushes her teeth for several minutes at a time. I'm the only kitty here who gets tooth brushing though - she is trying to get me started off right.

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  9. We dogs brush our teeth daily. Mom tried it with the cats, but it didn't jive with them at all. It seems cats and dental health is a bit more difficult.

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  10. Great post ! Angel Isis had very bad teeth and lost or had to get rid of almost all of them before she turned 4. She kept her canines, and her gums were healthy, so she could still chew and bite ! Purrs

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  11. That's such important stuff, gang. Zoe and Gracie were senior kitties when we adopted them, and they had very bad teeth. Zoe now has no more teeth, as of about a month ago. She is managing just fine, but a little prevention earlier in her life could have helped avoid that...

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  12. Good advice. Mommy tried to brush our teeth, but that didn't go very well. We think she'll start again after reading this.
    Love,
    Lola and Lexy

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  13. We hadn't realized that Maxwell had lost so many teeth so young. Way to help him beat the odds so he can continue to flash fang like the handsome mancat he is!

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  14. Cool! I’m writing about this soon. I keep my teeth clean and sharp by biting the humans. I also floss like Faraday.

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  15. We get our teef cleaned every other year. The vet says ours look pretty good.

    We get about a dozen little kibbles each twice a day. TBT thinks that is enough ta help scrape our teefs and it seems ta werk.

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  16. Yeah sis Lexi had gingivitis when she wuz a baby. Hers furst teefies came in fwu weally wed gums. And by 5 years old she had lost most of hers teef. Now she's almost 16. She only has a kupple teef lleft, but it hasn't stopped her, and we luv her, toofless or not. :) Gweat posty.

    Luv ya'

    Dezi and Lexi

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  17. I get to go to the vet on the 13th to get my teeth looked at. Mom thinks they might need cleaning.

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  18. My mom-person help's me brushing my toothies.
    I floss by my self , just like you Faraday :)
    The vet looks at my toothies when I'm there getting my annual shot.

    XOXO

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  19. We know how important dental health is. Mauricio is sitting in Mom's lap as she reads so she checked him out and his teeth and gums look meowvolous and he's a 10-yeard old. He says, "yippee!" XOCK, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo

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Coolio! A comment? For US?