Dog Teeth: Brushing, Costs and What Actually Works

Dental disease is the most common diagnosis in adult dogs and one of the most under-treated. Bad breath is not a personality trait — it is usually bacteria under the gumline, and left long enough it causes pain, tooth loss and infection that travels.

Brushing, realistically

Daily is ideal, three times a week is genuinely useful, once a week is better than nothing. Use dog toothpaste — human toothpaste contains fluoride and sometimes xylitol, both of which are a problem when swallowed.

Build up over two weeks rather than forcing it: let them lick paste off your finger, then rub a finger along the outer gums, then introduce a soft brush or finger brush. You only need to do the outer surfaces, where most tartar forms. Thirty seconds a side is plenty.

What a professional scale costs

A scale and polish under general anaesthetic commonly runs from around R1,800 to R5,000 in South Africa, more if extractions, x-rays or pre-anaesthetic bloods are needed. It sounds like a lot until you price the extraction of six loose teeth two years later.

Anaesthetic-free dental cleaning is heavily marketed and largely cosmetic — it cannot clean below the gumline, which is where disease lives, and it can leave a mouth looking better while getting worse.

What else helps

• Dental diets and prescription kibble designed to scrub rather than shatter genuinely reduce tartar.
• Approved dental chews help. Give them daily and account for the calories.
• Water additives and gels are mildly useful adjuncts, not substitutes.
• Raw bones clean teeth but carry fracture and obstruction risk. Cooked bones never.
• Hard nylon and hoof chews and ice cubes fracture teeth. The slab fracture on an upper premolar is a classic.

The signs you should not ignore

Bad breath that has changed or worsened, dropping food, chewing on one side, blood in the water bowl or on toys, a swelling under one eye, pawing at the mouth, or a dog that has gone quiet and off its food. Small breeds and short-nosed breeds get dental disease earlier and harder — check their mouths from a year old.