Regular dental care is an important aspect of caring for your pet’s general health and quality of life. If you’ve ever had tooth pain, you’ll know how miserable it can be! Additionally, untreated dental disease can release bacteria into your pet’s bloodstream, affecting the health of other organs in the body.

Here are a few ways you can save pennies by performing DIY home dental maintenance for your pet and when it’s best to utilise professional veterinary dental services.

1. Home dental hygiene maintenance

It’s recommended that you start dental hygiene maintenance for your pet as early as possible in their life (or soon after a recent dental procedure) to reduce the development of tartar and progressive dental inflammation.

Depending on your pet’s temperament and general health, we may recommend a variety of home care options including:

• training your pet to have their teeth brushed once daily with a soft toothbrush and pet-safe toothpaste (or water)
• daily dental chews (preferably with VOHC – Veterinary Oral Health Council – accreditation)
• prescription dental diets

2. Veterinary care

Comparatively, the cost of a veterinary dental clean may seem expensive compared to a human scale and polish – this is because humans generally don’t require a full general anaesthetic for a thorough below-the-gumline clean like pets do!

However, putting off dental cleans for your pet can unfortunately end up costing significantly more in the long run if your pet develops irreversible tooth damage and requires extractions.

Our best recommendation? Start early, regular dental hygiene maintenance for your pet at home to slow the build-up of dental disease. Then, wherever possible, try to have veterinary dental cleans performed promptly on your pet when recommended by our team, so that your pet hopefully only require clean-ups and not extractions.

Regular dental care for your pet should help keep both you and your pet smiling!