Vet Tutorial | How to Brush a Cat’s Teeth

I’m Dr. Clayton Greenway withhealthcareforpets. com and what we’re goingto show you today is how to brush yourcat’s teeth. I really encourage you towatch our other videos about dental careand about how to introduce toothbrushingto a pet. So you’re going to want tostart off very slowly. The first thing is is you really justwant your cat to get used to you feelingaround its mouth. Always keep in mindthat you want to be as safe as possible. Even though your cat is friendly to youin most circumstances when you startdoing this it could stress them out andyou don’t want to get bitten. If there’sfear of that then I don’t want you toincorporate this into your routine withyour pet. So first we just want tomassage the lips a little bit. When youdo this, you’ll figure out how your catreacts. The way I’m holding Kiwi is veryimportant. When you come at themface-first it tends to scare them so Iactually come over top of the head andas she just did thereshe’s trying to backup. So if I standbehind herthen she’s only backing up into me and Ihave a little better control over. Firstyou want to start just by placing sometoothpaste on your finger and putting itin front of her just to see if she hasan interest in the taste of thetoothpaste and whether she’ll lick it oreat it and you can try this many timesbefore you actually advance to the nextstage. Next you’ll want to actually tryrubbing her teeth with your finger. Now It’s important to know that the Tartaraccumulates on the outside of the teethso you have to take your pet and try to open itsmouth. When you do that they do get quitefrustrated so what we’re going to do iswe’re just gonna rub the outside of theteeth by keeping the mouth closed. So if we actually hold her head likethis we can hold her lower jaw and thetop of her headwe have a pretty good control over herand also her mouth is properlypositioned for this for me to slip myfinger past her lips and just rub alongthe side of her teeth like this. So this is the first time I’m tryingthis with Kiwi and you can see she’salready fairly accepting of it. Onceyou’ve spent many days doing that andgetting to the point that your cat isaccepting of that you can then move ontoa tooth brush. You can put the toothpasteon the toothbrush and you can do thesame motion. This is the first time again that I’mdoing this with Kiwi and she’s alreadyaccepting of it but the more you do itand the slower you go she’ll accept itbetter and you’ll get better at it. I recommend that clients brush theirpet’s teeth every day and I know that weall have busy schedules so what’s mostimportant to me is that I make it easybecause I know if it’s difficult, clientswon’t be consistent with it. So make itas easy as possible and then you’ll doit more consistently. If you can’t brushyour pet’s teeth as much as four or fivetimes a weekreally the value of it goes way down. Ifyou’re going to a groomer once a monthand they’re actually brushing the teethI don’t see a lot of value to that. Wehave to think of it in terms of ourteeth. We brush our teeth everyday,two or three times a dayand it’s no different for pets. We wantto try to do the same thing but doing itonce a day is going to be fantastic andit’s really going to improve theirdental healthcare overtime and limityour need for dental cleanings or gettinginto tooth decay and expensive toothextractions. So try to put it into yourroutine on a daily basis, try to get themto accept it by going very very slowlyand rewarding them with lots of love andtreats all the way along. If you’re able to do thisyou’re going to be providing fantasticcare for your pet and cutting down onyour veterinary bills so good luck andyou can read more and watch our videoshere at healthcareforpets. com.