Oral care

[msvette2u]

Get your minds out of the gutter

Do you do regular oral care on your dogs, and if the answer is "yes" do you include descaling tartar?
Do you brush "regularly" and how often is regular? (1x week? 1x day? 1x mo.?)

I'm just curious. I've started all our adopted dogs off young, or as soon as we got them, but Copper absolutely hates having his teeth done.

[Romanwild]

I am guilty of not having started. I was going to use one of the electric ones.

I noticed the dog toothpaste is very expensive. Could I use baking soda?

[cheekymunkee]

I feed raw so bones take care of that for us. Their teeth are sparkely white.

[rockermom]

Hates the tootpaste taste. And he will eat anything. He chews Nylabones to death. His teeth seem very white to me.

[msvette2u]

I am guilty of not having started. I was going to use one of the electric ones.

I noticed the dog toothpaste is very expensive. Could I use baking soda?

Yeah you can use that. But I must warn you - the chicken flavor toothpaste is a way to get them to "like" having their teeth brushed.
I always give a milkbone or other "favorite treat" RIGHT after brushing, before I even put the brush down, so they know that it's treat time when it's time to brush. They actually line up to get their teeth worked on and while they hate it they know a treat is coming!
You could also just brush with a plain toothbrush. It's better than nothing...

[pocketpit]

I voted for brush and scale even though I only hand scale their teeth. I used to brush but gave up long ago. My dogs tolerate it but I just got lazy. Thankfully most of my dogs have naturally good teeth and chewing on bones (or decoys) keeps them sparkly. But I do go through a couple of times a year and hand scale anything that might begin to build up on the gumline of those back teeth.
Brooks has terrible teeth as a result of having taken Tetracycline as a baby. I have to do all of her teeth every couple of months to keep down on the buildup.

[mnp13]

Ruby has horrible, nasty teeth. Two are broken, the rest are yellow and pretty gross.

She's getting them cleaned in three weeks.

[msvette2u]

That's a good time to start an oral care routine!
There's also pads you can use, you put it over your finger and slide your finger back between the cheek and teeth.
You only have to scrub the outsides of the teeth, the tongue takes care of the insides.
They also make a little soft brushlike thing, it's rubber and it slides on your fingertip.

[babyreba]

i brush once every coupla weeks and hand scale reba. never do that with the rescues. but i'm thinking of going that route with the pup.

reba is 14 and has pretty good teeth after using enzymatic toothpastes, raw bones, and scaling since she was about 4.