Adventures in Canine Tooth Brushing

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.

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.

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.

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!