How To Clean Your Cat"s Teeth
Dental health is every bit as important to cats as it is to humans. A regular program of teeth cleaning will ensure your cat will enjoy his senior years with all his teeth intact.
Difficulty: Average
Time Required: 5 minutes
Here's How:
- Assemble supplies: sterile gauze, scissors, cat toothpaste (available at pet stores) or a weak sterile solution recommended by your veterinarian.
- Wrap a strip of gauze around the index finger of your dominant hand and either dip it in the sterile solution, or apply a small amount of toothpaste to your fingertip.
- Holding the cat in your lap, open his mouth
- Gently rub your 'finger brush' in a circular motion on his teeth, concentrating on the area next to the gums. Gently massage the gums at the same time. It's not necessary to do the back sides of the teeth.
- Once your cat will tolerate this procedure, you can graduate to a small child's toothbrush.
- Give kitty a few loving pats and kind words, along with a little treat to polish off with his shiny clean teeth.
Tips:
- You might want to experiment with flavored toothpaste for cats. There is a fish-flavored one that is quite tasty.
- If you start practicing examining your cats teeth at a very young age, this process will be much easier. See 'How To Gentle a Kitten' for suggestions.
- Bleeding of the gums is a sign your cat needs professional dental scaling by your veterinarian, so attend to that as soon as possible.
What You Need:
- Sterile gauze
- Cat toothpaste / solution
- Opt: small toothbrush
- Scissors
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