Best way to clean cats teeth

[Stringagal]

He’s 7 and only eats dry food so has pretty good teeth, but at his annual check up recently the vet said to try brushing them now he’s getting older.

I’ve googled and there is cat toothpaste, silicon finger brushes, dental toys, stuff to sprinkle on food - who knew!

Any advice on what works best? He’s quite a docile chap so is unlikely to kill me for trying.

Buy them all.

Try them all.

Realise that the vet has never owned a cat before 😼

lol @Scampuss I was afraid of this!!

Lol we started when she was a kitten so this might not help but this is what we’re using at the moment but small headed brushes have worked too. I find the finger brushes that come free in toothpaste packs too big. As pp said it’s trial and error.

https://amzn.eu/d/fTmaqLG

A month ago she just refused to keep having a toothpaste she had been eager to lick before so we had to find a new one.
Logic didn’t go down well.
She used the VetUK toothpaste for years
Atm we use Orozyme

To add, mine's a biter so she does most of her own tooth cleaning by biting me cardboard and chew toys.

One of my teenagers saw a TikTok or something about cleaning cats teeth. Thought it was a brilliant idea, easy peezy, there was no blood or hissing on the video after all.

Hahahahaha is all I can say. My cat did not comply.

To answer the title - under general anaesthetic with a vet wielding a dental sonic cleaning thingy

I tried some toothpaste with cheddar yesterday. She was ok about it!

Other cat has just coat me £900 having 6 teeth out!

Vet: it would be amazing if you could brush her teeth
Us: it truly would <hysterical laughter>

I buy the ridiculously expensive dental dry food and give Cat Two raw meat several times a week.
If cats would eat raw chicken wings none of us would have to worry about this.
#iblamethepawtriarchy

I manage ok with my moggy, starting when she was about 20m old. Baby (human) toothbrush & cat toothpaste. Small room on floor where she can't run away, I huddle from behind her back & keep it quick, just 5-10 seconds on each side, 1-4x/month. She likes the taste but and immediately forgives me.

D-Cats HATE the anti-flea drops or deworming pills, so brushing teeth is easy in comparison. I could swaddle her in a towel instead, haven't tried it, but would keep claws out of the picture. Helps that she's small, < 4 kg.

2 people on it, would make it easier if I wanted to put more time into it.

I may update what vet says at next check

ps: my impression is that minimum price per tooth extracted is £200, £300 more typical. I can brush cat teeth to avoid that.

All three of my cats would savage my hand off if I tried any of these, and two of them will sit politely and take tablets and medication without a hint of bother

My oldest is nine soon and has great teeth - all we do is give them a couple of dental treats occasionally and make sure they have dry food that needs crunching up too.

Oh, and my oldest is 8kg ish and could no way be held and restrained like the vet suggests for teeth brushing - it took three of us and two separate appointments to keep him still enough get his blood taken last year 😂

Like I am every going near either of my cats' mouths voluntarily!

One of those mouths has sent me to A+E for iv antibiotics. Never, ever again.

First, buy your suit of armour.

Thanks all, answers as expected (still made me laugh!) so I think I’ll knock the meat flavoured toothpaste on the head and get some sticks of some sort!

I had the sprinkles for a while and now on dental dry food. Logic gel wasn't a success and I tried to brush their teeth with absolutely 0 success rate - told my vet this and she said "that's what I expected but it was worth a try" 😂

Managed to get some toothpaste into Penelope last night, I'm still alive!

Yes to this.
Last vet I saw commented how good the cat's teeth were and I confessed to fauilkure in the cleaning. He said he never advises it as it's so difficuklt and doesn't work anyway.
I just give him the odd few dental treats.