Greyhounds in general don't have many health problems, but their teeth sometimes warrant extra attention. Barbie lost a few teeth and has a clean and scale at the vets every year since. All the dogs in my house get at least one dental chew a day (dentastix, greenies, or sometimes pig's ears), but that's evidently not enough.
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| the two guinea pigs |
Brushing doggie teeth is not something commonly done in these parts, so I had to go looking for doggie toothpaste. The first one I bought was an epic fail. Barbie screwed her nose up and ran away as soon as I took the cap off. It was vanilla flavoured - what did I expect? It didn't even smell good to me - it smelled a bit like human toothpaste. I figure that they were marketing this product to people more than dogs.
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| this is bad toothpaste, unless your dog likes weird vanilla smells |
I ordered some 'Dentipet' chicken flavoured toothpaste from Jumbopets when I got my flea and heartworm meds last week and when I opened this container I got a totally different response from the dogs. They all came running to see what the delicious smell was.
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| good dog toothpaste |
Mouse and Barbie both allowed me to smear it all over their teeth with my finger. Mouse was more cooperative so I got onto her with the toothbrush. She was pretty good. Barbie doesn't tolerate the brush yet, but I think smooshing it around on her teeth with my finger is better than nothing. I am doing it every night so I think it will be like nail clipping, eventually she will just give up and let me do what I want. Perhaps we can delay her next dental for some months.
I have seen some great videos of greyhounds submitting to an electric toothbrush. Including this one posted on greytalk.
Maybe I'll try that …. one day haha…. I am not going to use mine though!
