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Pet Grooming: Dental hygiene for your pup

March 4, 2013 By Sunny Lim

The love we feel when our cute little puppy lick us on our faces, but to some people, it may also feel like they’re smearing crap at the same time (not because thy enjoy licking themselves down south).

Causes and effects of tooth decay

Like us, the food they consume (carbohydrates and processed foods are usually the main culprits) will cause the formation of plague. As plague crystallizes and hardens, tartar is formed. When that happens, brushing alone will not be able to remove the tartar. If allowed to form further, tartar will cause inflammation of the gums, also known as gingivitis.

Left unchecked, the bacteria will damage the tooth and this is when your dog will show symptoms of bad breath (I mean REALLY bad breath), receding gums and tooth decay. In very serious cases, the bacteria from the tooth decay may cause infection of the nose, eyes and even the brain.

We have to brush our teeth twice a day and the only difference between us and dogs is that their teeth are spaced further apart and they don’t eat as much junk as we do, but still brushing still needs to be a part of their grooming regiment.

It’s a one way street

Besides, if the tooth is already damaged, extraction is usually the only solution. And because poor dental hygiene affects the whole set of teeth, many of the serious cases sent for dental scaling and extraction goes home with only a few remaining teeth. That is why, protect your pet’s teeth before irreversible damage is done!

And please, do not send it to the pet groomer thinking that a simple tooth brushing will miraculously remove all the tartar build up and bad breath. You have a little more sense than that right?

Besides, little to people know that tooth diseases have a deep impact on the overall health of the body. There is an increasing evidence proving that tooth diseases causes bacteria to enter the bloodstream causing damage to other organs. Just do a quick search periodontal disease and its effects on the body and you be the judge.

So if your dog’s breath smells like death, it’d be a good idea to book an appointment with your vet to have your pup’s teeth checked first.

Prevention is better than… actually prevention is the only way

Luckily, there are products in the market to make this easier, ranging from water additives, to mouth rinse, sprays and gels that you can use without the need for brushing. Then again, I do not like the idea of adding anything to drinking water (although all dental products are safe to ingest, but I believe water is essential to cleanse the system and nothing should be added to hinder the process), so if you really have to use non-brushing methods, I would recommend gels where you can spread with your fingers. Why? From experience, if your dog refuses to let you have their teeth brushed, you’re not going to get a lot of luck with sprays and mouth wash either.

Alternatively, you can use natural seaweed food additives that can be sprinkled on your pet’s food like ProDen PlagueOff. The supplement alters the saliva and prevents plague from adhering to the teeth.

Why I still prefer brushing and how to do it

Finally there’s the age-old method of brushing their teeth that is fast, cheaper and highly effective.

If your dog tends to be on the playful side or refuses to let you do anything at all, I would recommend you to start with more gentle grooming activities like brushing their coat or ear cleaning first.

During this phase, frequently meddle with their mouth – massage their gums, pry open their lips to look at their teeth, start with just the front lips and slowly proceed day by day until your dog lets you stretch their lips to see the rear molars.

You should even let them taste a little of the pet toothpaste. Most of them are flavoured and dogs love the taste! My dogs treats their tooth brushing session as a reward session, jumping wildly when they see that I’m grabbing the tube of toothpaste.

My best advice with difficult, active dogs, be firm and don’t give up. Reward when they comply and be firm and reprimand when they don’t.

One step at a time

To get them accustomed to the sensation of brushing, you can try any of the following methods and adjust accordingly depending on how well your dog accepts it. Suggestions are listed in ascending order with (1) being the least stressful:

Brush their teeth with just your finger and nothing else.
Wrap your index finger with a thin cloth and brush their teeth.
Pet finger brush.
Using a proper toothbrush. Personally I use baby toothbrush for small dogs and normal adult toothbrushes for medium to large dogs. There’s really no need to get pet toothbrushes or those fancy “3-way” toothbrushes.

Be patient

For every method that you try, do not attempt to brush their full set of teeth unless your pup allows it. Start slow, bit by bit and slowly increase the duration and area covered every day. There is no need to clean the inside of the teeth, as plague mostly forms on the outside and the insides are taken care of when they lick off the toothpaste.

Remember to reward and reprimand accordingly and try to end the training session with a reward. That means that if your pet struggles, wait until he calms down, revert back to a shorter duration or less stressful method and reward the well behaviour and continue the next day.

Natural Alternatives

Call me old-fashioned, but given that plague is a sticky biofilm that clings firmly on the teeth and surrounding plague, I’m still quite critical of how well non-brushing products would work and even if they do, I wonder what effects they may cause if ingested in the long term, even if they claim to be “Natural”.

As for toothpaste, I choose enzymatic toothpaste as they continue to work even after brushing by inhabiting bacterial growth and at least I know that they’re derived from milk.

If you really want to control what goes into your toothpaste, you can mix 2 tbs of baking soda, a teeny bit of olive oil and 1/4 tsp of broth to taste and mix it into a paste. If you want, you can add some chopped parsley or basil into it to freshen their breath and to fight inflammation.

Remember, be it commercial toothpaste or home-made ones, a tiny bit goes a long way. I don’t like the idea of them swallowing toothpaste and baking soda is a source of sodium, so you’ll have to watch that too.

How about starting your pup on that dental regime today? Don’t forget to comment on the problems you are facing as well as your suggestions! Finally, please share this if you find this useful!

Pet Grooming: It’s not just giving your pet a bath.

February 25, 2013 By Sunny Lim

Taking a shower – most of us do it twice a day so we should be experts even when it comes to giving our pets a bath isn’t it? Hell, even some professional pet groomers aren’t doing a good job.

So today I’d like to offer some advice and hopefully you’d learn something new. Apart from its purpose of keeping your pets clean, proper pet grooming technique aids in promoting skin health, although the opposite is also true – when done carelessly, may lead to skin problems. Here’s what you need:

Squeeze bottle. Those selling for a dollar in hardware shops for chilli sauce.
Quality shampoo. Doesn’t have to be expensive. I like to look for those that are sulphate free. Most soaps have sulphate based surfactants which are cause for irritation and other problems manufacturers don’t want us to know. An alternative is to look for Cocamidopropyl betaine, a coconut oil derived surfactant used in most organic product as the main cleansing ingredient.
Quality conditioner. Again, doesn’t have to be expensive. If possible, look for products without mineral oil (or look out for key words like paraffin or petrolatum) and silicone (chemical names ending with -cone e.g. dimethicone, -conol or -siloxane). Or else, make sure they are at the bottom of the ingredients’ list.

Directions:

Mix the shampoo in the squeeze bottle and mix it with 5-10 parts water. How much water to dilute is up to you. As long it’s easy to apply and it foams sufficiently, then it’s OK. Why dilute? The reason is that all shampoo leaves residue no matter how well you think you have rinse it away. Diluting prevents too much residue from accumulating on one area of the skin and coat. Secondly, diluted shampoo spreads easily, rinses easily and saves money!
If it’s a treatment shampoo, please leave it on for 5 minutes or as directed.
As residue does more harm than good, it’s imperative that the shampoo get rinsed off thoroughly until the coat feels squeaky.
Dilute the conditioner like you did with the shampoo and apply it to the whole body. Pay extra attention to the armpit, legs and undercarriage as these are places usually neglected during brushing and more commonly exposed to factors that cause tangles.
Similarly, make sure you rinse off the conditioner thoroughly. A thoroughly rinsed should feel powdery, not slick and oily. A good conditioner should not feel too smooth as it’s a good indication that there is too much silicon or mineral oil in it.
Once a month, mix a teaspoon of baking soda into the shampoo (you may add unfiltered apple cider vinegar too if you want to) and shampoo your pet as usual. This removes the residual build-up and clarifies the hair shaft and skin, making treatment products work better as well as to add volume to the coat. You can even use it on your own hair once a week!

Even when the conditioner indicates that they can be left on or rinsed lightly, my past experience has shown that it may cause skin problems rather than help it. One possible explanation may be that because of Singapore’s humid weather, the conditioner retains excessive moisture on the skin and coat, creating a moist environment that promotes bacterial and fungal growth. Most pet products, including food, are designed and used in cooler climates and we have to keep that in mind.

If you need any more pet grooming tips, let us know what you would like to be featured!

Diseases: Natural cures to chronic skin problems

January 30, 2013 By Sunny Lim

Have you wondered why your pet’s skin problems keeps recurring after spending so much money on vet bills? Even if you’re the lucky few who don’t face the problem, please read on. Given the rise of unscrupulous breeders, there’s a high chance that your future pet is going to develop chronic skin problems. Besides, the recommendation I’m going to give today will help to improve your pet’s overall well-being. That in turn is going to save you a lot of medical bills and more importantly, heartaches.

I have two dogs and they are both on the same diet. Why is that only one of them is suffering from skin problems?

Unfortunately, whether your pet is susceptible to diseases is already written in the genes and others, are more prone to certain problems because of their physical attributes. The reason? Let’s go a little into the details. Female dogs ovulate twice a year and this period is the only golden windows in the year when breeders have the potential to earn money from the dogs in holding (or what we call the ‘breeding stock’).

Because of this pressure, they would try to breed whatever dogs they can, usually resorting to in-breeding or line breeding (mating siblings or close relatives). This act results in what we commonly see in humans when genes of both parents are closely related, the incidences of birth related defects or genetic problems would be higher.

Furthermore, because of the defects, it lowers the animal’s chance of getting bought, the breeder in his effort to utilize all resources efficiently, would use the defective pet for breeding again and in turn, creating a next generation who are carriers of the faulty genes.

In addition, businesses being businesses, would seek to minimize costs and maximize profits. With that in mind, would you think that the animals in the farm would receive quality care? Would they be fed quality food that is essential to good health? That is why so many animals grow up with poor immune systems that’s so prone to diseases.

Secondly, some breeds are more susceptible to skin problems than others. E.g. Dogs with wrinkled skin (Shar-pei, Pugs etc) are more prone to Skin Fold Dermatitis where because of moisture trapped between the folds causing bacterial and fungal growth.

My pet has not have skin issues for the last couple of years up until recently. What’s wrong?

Just like in our human bodies, viruses, parasites, malicious cells are present in and on your pet’s bodies all the time. They lie dormant only because they’re being suppressed by the body’s immune system. Whenever your pet is exposed to long term stressors physically or mentally, take for example separation anxiety, possessiveness, change of environment, pregnancy, heat cycles, illness, allergens from food or the environment, it may cause the body’s immune system to weaken and cause skin problem outbreaks and other problems like intestinal parasites and obsessive paw licking.

What do I do then?

Like humans, they can be stressed about anything and allergic to anything, therefore, a process of trial and error is inevitable.

If your dog is calm and you don’t think it is mentally unbalanced in any areas, you can follow these recommendations:

See a vet and get skin tests done to see what might be causing the problem (Bacterial? Fungal? Demodex or Mange mites?) Medications can be prescribed to ease symptoms for a moment. Zymox is a range of enzymatic products usually prescribed for bad cases of bacterial and fungal infection. It’s usually my choice too because of its natural ingredients which doesn’t have any of the harmful side effects that other medications, steroids or antibiotic does. You can get it from the vet or from The Grooming Table.
Identify if there’s any changes in your pet’s lifestyle or environment lately. Food, new member in the family, new pets, pregnancy, products, floor cleaners used etc.
Feed your pet a high quality, grain free diet, or even better, commercially available raw diets (commonly known as BARF diets). If you see an improvement, you can try reading up on how to prepare raw diets at home for your pets. A complete, raw, varied diet that is close to their ancestral diet helps to bring the body back into balance. (More on this the next time.)
Eliminate any forms of bread, biscuits, commercial treats. They either contains carbohydrates which fungus feed on, yeasts or contains toxins that just wrecks the system. Here’s how to make your own.
You can also try using raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar aka ACV (Bragg or Solana Gold) in their diets or as a leave on treatment. For small dogs, add a teaspoon into their food daily, 2 teaspoon for a medium breed and a full tablespoon for large dogs. It contains numerous enzymes and minerals which has a variety of benefits, including improving digestion, balancing the body PH levels, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial properties and much more. As a leave on, dilute 1 part ACV with 3 parts water and apply to the body after shampooing and conditioning. Dry as normal.
Bathe your dog every 1-2 weeks. Too much sebum will be removed if bathed too often which will stress the skin to produce more sebum. Too infrequently, the bacterial flora will over colonize on the dogs skin especially if the skin is already weak.
Always apply conditioner after bathing. This helps to bring the skin back to balance after being exposed to cleaning agents. Also rinse the conditioner thoroughly as too much product left on the skin will also encourage bacterial growth especially in hot and humid weather. For more information, read our article on how to give your pet a bath.
Dry thoroughly after its bath.
Do not use any fragrances on your pet.
Although Singapore is warm all year round I have customers who claim that during cooler periods their pet’s skin did show signs of improvement. If really so, have your pet stylist give Fido a shorter clip or have the undercoat removed. Or place a metal sheet in sheltered areas to serve as a cooling pad.

Remember, the key is really a lot of trial and error. It is a tiring and painstaking process, but it is essential to solving the root of the problem. It is a long term solution to save your pet and your pocket, not antibiotic and steroids. I wish you all the best and please take a before and after picture of your pet’s skin and post it on our Facebook page will you? Or did you have any similar experiences? Please share it on our Facebook page.

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