Quote Originally Posted by Jessika View Post
I know it's already been said but I'll echo it: all groomers do is brush your dog's teeth. If s/he already has tartar build-up, the brushing does nothing. In order for brushing to be effective, you need to do it a minimum of 3-5 days a week (ideally 7 hehe) after their teeth have been cleaned at your vet, or starting as a puppy. And brushing really is not that hard to do; many owners think you have to pry their mouth open and fight with them to brush all sides of their teeth. We tell clients to use a finger brush, hold your mouth around their muzzle to steady their head, and using an ENZYMATIC toothpaste (cleans "chemically" versus "mechanically"), just coat the OUTSIDES of their teeth very well with the toothpaste, and then pick up all food and water for 30 minutes after doing it. This not only allows the toothpaste to sit there and do its job, but it also promotes saliva production, which also helps clean.

If you're only going to brush once a month, you may as well not brush at all because it truly isn't beneficial (if we only brushed our teeth once a week, how good would our teeth be? hehe). You can chip off the tartar as it accumulates, but nothing beats daily brushing after a dental cleaning. Sadly, you do need to put them under anesthesia, because in order for us to clean every nook and cranny of their teeth (inside and out), and do a full mouth evaluation (those molars in the back like to go bad, and it's almost impossible to see it in an awake dog), plus extractions for bad teeth, they have to be under anesthesia. No dog (or cat!) will let you do that to them awake.

Oops, forgot to mention -- sometimes they will have gingivitis without tartar buildup. Our vets suggest dentals to pets with gingivitis, not necessarily if they just have tartar alone. Gingivitis means they're infected under the gums, and as previously mentioned the only true and best medical way to do that is to put the pet under anesthesia to properly clean under there. So just because you see tartar doesn't necessarily mean the teeth are bad, and vice-versa.

Yeah, that's basically what we are planning to do. Save up money for a full dental cleaning at the vet and then keep up with the cleaning at home and hopefully stay on top of it so it doesn't get this bad again. I'm also still looking for things he might be more enthusiastic to chew on, but so far I haven't had much luck. Thanks for the tip about the enzymatic toothpaste.