How To Brush Puppy Teeth

Meet Eloise! Ello for short; rhymes with jello. She just lost her last baby tooth!

Our pets give us so much love. They are there to greet us at the door and snuggle us when we are not feeling well. They are there no matter what. One way I can give them love back is by caring for their health. One way I do that is by taking care of their teeth.

Teeth brushing is super important to your pet’s health. Teaching them to like it can be a challenge for some pets. The way I’ve always done it has worked for me, so I’d thought I’d share it with you. You can check out the video here (or scroll down to the bottom to see the video!) and if you don’t want to watch it…read on!

I’ve never liked using commercial “pet” tooth paste. The ingredients in all the ones I’ve looked into wasn’t anything I wanted my pets to ingest. So I looked into ingredients that I was okay allowing my pets to eat, because let’s be real, our pets don’t know how to spit! Hahahahaha.

I offer my cats coconut oil in a dish. I leave it next to their water and I’ve found over the years that their teeth are really nice and a bonus to that was the amount of hairballs came almost to a stop and what I mean by that is I was cleaning at least one a day! Now it’s more like one a month. When you care for as many felines as I do, it was a lot of daily icky hairball cleaning. And don’t worry…none of my cats eat up the whole bowl of coconut oil! They will take a few licks and walk away.

My dogs get coconut oil after their daily meals. Bonus, their coats look better and itching has stopped. I do not leave a bowl of it out like I do for the kitties. They’d eat the whole amount in a sitting and I don’t need to tell you the mess on the other end if I did!

From reading, I’m sure you can gather that it was coconut oil that I discovered would make an excellent toothpaste; it’s edible and good for them to boot. Their breaths after brushing are really nice too!

You can use coconut oil straight. I scoop out about two tablespoons of coconut oil into a small glass jar and I will dip the toothbrush into it. My pets come running when I do this! It is a “treat” after all. Another way I make pet “teeth-paste” (Never understood why we used the word “tooth paste” when we brush more than one tooth…um well hopefully we do!)…back to another way I make paste, is by mixing diatomaceous earth in with the coconut oil. It helps to solidify it and diatomaceous earth is also good for our pets. PLEASE MAKE SURE the diatomaceous earth you buy is NOT for pools. It must be edible. And to make sure of this, buy it from a health food source. I buy mine online through Swanson Vitamins; you can check out the link here, (I’m not an affiliate with S.V. They don’t do that…I wish they did. I talk about them all the time! Ha!) You can look up the benefits of diatomaceous earth. It helps with fleas too! Yay.

Making it fun is the most important thing, because if they are scared/timid, it makes teeth brushing unpleasant for both you and your furry friend…No one wants to reenact a WWF headlock move! So basically what I do is I put the coconut oil on the toothbrush and let the dog lick it and they might chew on the bristles. I allow them to set the pace and play with the bristles and become familiar with the feeling. If I start brushing teeth on a pet that has never had their teeth brushed and coconut oil isn’t enticing them to give it a try, I will try other things on the brush to get them to “play”. Peanut butter is a good one. I’ve never met a dog that didn’t like peanut butter. Obviously it isn’t something you want to use regularly…just to get them to like having a tooth brush in their mouth is the key. You can switch them to coconut oil later. For the kitties, you can try putting their wet food on it, cream, or juice from tuna to get them started. I’ve found over the years my cats willingness to eat coconut oil keeps their teeth clean without having to brush them. I do check their teeth periodically and have noticed their teeth are beautiful without having them scraped. I’m not a fan of taking my pets to the vet to have their teeth done. I’ve lost a pet being put under anesthesia. Caring for their teeth is not only a cost saving, but a life-saving too.

Many things go wrong in a pet’s health by having bad teeth and gums. Check them weekly if you don’t brush them. Give coconut oil a try. I use organic unfiltered cold pressed. You can find it at Swanson Vitamins, check out the link here. I’ve bought it at Costco and Target too! And if you caught that I give the dogs the coconut oil after their meals, I’ve found it helps any food residue to slip away!

That’s basically it. I hope this helps you to help your pet stay healthy. A healthy mouth is a healthy pet!

The furry gang here At Koko’s Place and I thank YOU for reading!

Have a happy tail-wagging day!

Koko