Brushing cats teeth - how?

[Kaleidoscopic101]

Hi,

Vet told me that dental work is their bread and butter...and so it's good to brush the cats teeth.

Is this an easy feat or near impossible? If you manage to regularly brush their teeth, do you have any tips, tricks, techniques that work for you and your cat?

Thanks :)

The vet did once suggest trying it, but I didn't. Maybe if you have a very docile cat they would let you, but I can't see you being able to do it often enough or thoroughly enough to make much difference.

Diet plays a part in their dental health but a lot of it seems to be down genetics. I have had 16 year old cats who died with a full set of brilliant teeth, and 5 year old cats who had multiple extractions. They had very similar diets.

My cat lets me, but vet said it was pretty rare in his experience. Bought a pack of nobbly silicon finger covers from Amazon and a tube of chicken flavour toothpaste. He likes the flavour so is now even easier. Dentist could see the improvement last time.

there was an expose somewhere that dental work is where vets fleece their customers, and I’ve known friends have their cats given general anaesthetic for fairly low level procedures. I’m happy to get a couple of scratches to avoid going down that road.

Our cat is super chilled in almost all respects, but he draws the line at tooth brushing. When I’ve tried to go in with either a cat brush or the thimble things he growls and backs off. These days we just give him some dental treats and get the vet to do a full clean (under anaesthetic!) every 18 months or so.

Haha my vet suggested this and I ended up being strongly advised by my cat that such shenanigans will not be tolerated. So I give her dentalife biscuits instead. Five a day at lunchtime.

Ah thank you good to know it's not just me that is struggling with this task! I will look into dentalife biscuits - thank you :)

We just make sure the cats have dry food everyday which helps clean teeth. The oldest is 10 and none of them have ever had dental issues.

I was advised that dry food causes problems, cats arent meant to have things with cereals and grains in them, so the carbs/sugars in them ruin their teeth

Wet food, high meat content. Raw bones if they'll eat them and know what to do with them. Mine just stares at it on the floor

My vet recommended this. The instructions say to brush the animal’s teeth with it if possible but if that’s not an option, get them to lick it off your finger, which is what we do. My cat loves it & comes running when she sees the tube.

www.boots.com/logic-oral-hygeine-gel-multi-enzyme-toothpaste-for-dogs-and-cats-70g-10336526

Has anyone tried this? I saw it recommend

https://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/cats/supplements_specialty_cat_food/cat_dental/supplements/276536

Liver toothpaste and a silicone finger brush.

My 15 year old cat has lost one fang. It just became loose so vet took it out. The rest are apparently fine but I get them descaled once a year. She does a lot of bone crunching though. The three year old cat brings her mice and the old cat eats them.
I don't know why the younger cat does this. It's as if she's caring for the old cat.

https://www.inventorcat.co.uk/

This is the only thing I've tried that works. The idea that dry food cleans cats teeth has been debunked over and over.

Yes I use this on my 14 year old boys. It was recommended to me by the rescue I volunteer at. One of my boys has really stinky breath, had a dental last year with a couple of teeth out and almost immediately his breath started smelling again. Then had a teeth clean at the vets and stinky breath came back within a couple of weeks. He won’t tolerate brushing his teeth and the dental biscuits were not doing anything.
He’s not had a check up since we started using it, but his breath is nowhere near as stinky, so hopefully it’s doing something.
We are still not up to the full dose either, as they originally didn’t like the taste so we’ve had to wean them onto it.
No idea if it’s making any difference dentally, will eventually see what the vet says when they have their next check up, but it’s definitely reduced smelly breath.