DENTAL CARETeeth are often covered with plaque. This plaque contains food remainders, saliva and bacteria. Tartar is calcificated plaque, it has a brown/yellow color and it's very porous. There are a lot of bacteria in the tartar and because of the food remainders bacteria multiply easily and quickly. It results in a foul breath. This, together with the brown/yellow coloring, is one of the first signs of tartar. Tartar "grows" mainly at night. In the daytime chewing and the movement of the tongue and lips helps cleaning the teeth. At the places where the tubes of the salivary-glands come into the mouth you will find the most tartar, like above the P4 in the upper jaw. Sometimes tartar is not only on the visual part of the teeth but it can also be under the gums. The bacteria can cause an infection, we call this gingivitis. The gums are "slimy" red and a bit painful. Mostly this gingivitis will be unnoticed, sometimes you only see some gum bleeding. If there is a lot of tartar, the space between the gums and teeth, the gingival sulcus, will become bigger. We call this process parodontose and when there is an inflammation we call it parodontitis. When we don't stop this process, the bone and the periodontal membrane will be broken down slowly, teeth will loosen and fall out. Regularly practicing good oral hygiene can help you prevent gingivitis and tartar. When there already is a lot of tartar, your vet has to remove it first, sometimes under anaesthesia. Then you have to try to prevent that the tartar will rebuild up again. Dry diets and chewing bones help to keep the teeth free of plaque and tartar. But you can also brush the teeth with a toothbrush and a special dog toothpaste. When you want to clean your dogs teeth, you can put him on a table so you can stand behind him and you can fix the dogs head against your body. Now he isn't able to move his head suddenly. He can hurt himself especially if you want to use a dental scaler to remove the tartar. Before you want to remove the tartar you can put some Hydrogen Peroxide 3% on it, this makes removing easier. Hold the scaler in your hand the same way as you hold a pen, and place your ring-finger or little finger on the dogs head. This way you can hold your hand more steady which prevent hurting the dog after a sudden movement. Place the scaler between the gum and tartar and firmly flick the tartar loose. Rinse the toothbrush after using with water and clean a scaler with some alcohol.
Karin M. Vrieswijk-Zeijlemaker, dental assistant.
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