We all take the time to take care of our appearance and hygiene to look and feel our best, but many of us with four-legged best friends don’t think about doing the same for our pets. With February being pet dental health month, now is the best time to think about our pet’s health and beauty as well! Of course, there are health benefits to taking care of your pet’s hygiene, but I’m not going to talk about that here. This is the answer to my question, “how hard is it to brush a cat’s teeth?”.
I have an orange tabby cat who is always being told how handsome he is by people in the Vet’s office or just visitors to my house. For this Valentine’s Day, this handsome boy is showing off those looks in his black and white bow-tie, but we all know that good looks aren’t always good enough without equally as good dental hygiene. But how hard is it to brush a cat’s (or dog’s) teeth? I spent the last two or three weeks (I didn’t keep track of my start date) trying to brush my cat’s teeth every few days; this is how it went.
First off, my cat should have been easy. He loves being held, he doesn’t mind his teeth being touched or people poking their fingers in his mouth, and he has two large fangs that should be easy to get to. It should be easy, but it’s not at all. Not even close to easy. I used a cat-sized toothbrush I got from a pet store and tuna flavored cat toothpaste, which he absolutely loves. Surprisingly the hardest part of this was trying to prevent him from eating all the toothpaste. I mostly tried to brush those two large fangs of his since they were the easiest to reach and he isn’t too used to this, but the end result was him happily purring as he twisted to lick the toothpaste off the brush. Because of this the toothpaste mostly ended up on his cheeks and tongue while the only brushing that was happening was a result of him trying to chew on the brush, but over time, finally, we managed to get somewhere! By Valentine’s Day, I was still struggling to keep him from eating all the toothpaste, but we got some teeth brushed!
So how hard is it to brush a cat’s teeth? Hard. Very hard, but not impossible. After many attempts at it, this handsome kitty began to get used to having his teeth brushed and it looks like he will continue to get better at it. My cat enjoys being held and touched, so it might be more difficult for other cats or dogs, but we love them so it’s always worth it.