Brushing Teeth

[Vikarious]

Does anyone brush their own cats teeth?
Is it necessary?

My last cat apparently had bad teeth - so bad that the vets wanted to charge $600 to pull some of them (he had terminal cancer though, so I think bad teeth were the least of his worries).

Anyway, I'd like to avoid bad teeth as much as possible so I thought about brushing Mojo's teeth myself. I bought a soft, baby toothbrush and have managed to brush the outsides of his teeth without having my eyeballs go missing

Anyone else? Do you use a pet toothpaste? Is there a reason I should NOT being doing this??


Thanks.

[Plummie]

It's a great thing to brush your cat's teeth. You are supposed to use toothpaste made especially for pets, not humans, and if they tolerate it then I would do it regularly. One of my cats has pretty bad plaque build-up but he will not let me go NEAR his mouth, so this summer he is going to go under anesthesia and have a dental.

Any kind of preventative maintenance can help prevent the need for this, as dentals are expensive and as always anesthesia can be risky.

[pihlaja]

I brush my cats' teeth with a special pet toothbrush that fits easily into their mouth and a toothpaste formulated for cats. You can buy pet toothpaste for cats at almost any pet store and even stores like Wal-Mart.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, know what I mean?

[Nikki6496]

My Kitty had to have dental and they said the best way to prevent that was by brushing.

Her teeth look great now.

[animalexpert]

My cats teeth are normally in good condition, but if they need a good clean we usually have too take them to the vets as they are difficult cats, wouldn't want too try and brush their teeth but for my dog it would be a different story

[mm_simb]

I wrap both my cats in a blanket...or softly sit on them and they both open their mouth automatically when I stick the toothbrush in there. I use a cat toothpaste and brush. One of my cats also gets a dentistry at the vets once a year.

[lixx]

I brush all my guys! It's definatly worth it. Make sure you do it regularily, 3 times a week.