Alternatives to brushing teeth for cat?

[TBKate]

So I have a lovely almost 4 year old Ragdoll girl who I adopted in November. When I took her for her post-adoption checkup, vet pronounced her fine except for gasp gingivitis. I had noticed that she does a weird repetitive mouth smacking thing… No problem, says vet, just brush her teeth daily. Now, I’ve had cats my whole life and never once has one of them had their teeth brushed (or had any dental issues). That said, they were indoor/outdoor, and Gwynnie girl is strictly indoor, so maybe my previous cats were out chewing on sticks to get rid of plaque. :lol:

So, doting (and naive!) cat mother that I am, I purchase the cat dental care kit and set about dental rescue. Two months later…Let’s just say she is having NONE of that tooth brushing business. She refuses to be desensitized to tooth-brushing in any form (probably partially b/c her gums hurt! :() I’ve been giving her Feline Greenies, but they haven’t fixed the problem on their own. I want to try any/all at home remedies before I subject her to a full-on descaling at the vet. She is very docile, and I can trim her claws and brush her all over without issue, but once I try to get near her teeth she turns into an evil beast. :eek:

She does not have any issues eating her dry food, so that’s something. I’ve seen various products advertised that are supposed to destroy tartar with just a few sprays a day–has anyone used these? Results? Anyone able to recommend a good tartar control dry food? Really any suggestions that will help her out and allow me to keep all my fingers would be greatly appreciated!

[Simkie]

Dry food does nothing to “control tartar” in the mouth. It actually contributes to dental issues. Feeding raw with bones is the best thing you can do for the teeth. If you can’t do that, feeding all wet is significantly better than all dry.

www.catinfo.org is a good place to start.

[JB]

Yep, dry food is like eating pretzels - try it

Check out my thread on finding bones for kitties. It was laid out that not only do bones big enough to actually chew help with tooth health, but the dense meat portions of birds can really help as well.

[Cammie]

If you come up with anything genius, please let me know. My kitty had another allergy flare-up, this time to new carpet. :rolleyes:

I took her in for a steroid shot, and found out during the exam some of her back teeth are looking bad and may have to come out. Lots of gingivitis and crud going on- vet said it may have to do with her allergies, although I haven’t come across anything on the internet that would indicate a link. She’s only a year and a half, so way too young to have such lousy teeth. She did have a very rough start in life, and was nearly dead from starvation when I found her as a kitten. So poor nutrition? Bad genetics? Allergies? Ugh.

The vet recommended a dental wash after she gets her tooth cleaning and possible extractions. They come in flavors though, so odds are she would be allergic to them. :sigh: I did see one product that you put in their drinking water, but I don’t know how well that would work with a cat. This is the brand they carried at the vet’s office- http://www.virbacvet.com/Products/DentalHealth/RinsesandFoams/C.E.T.OralHygieneRinse.aspx

She gets canned beef EVO, and freeze-dried liver treats. I do give her raw hamburger and steak pieces but not every day. I was thinking about buying some cubed steak and giving her a piece a day to tear up to try and help her teeth, although the vet didn’t seem to think it would help much.

I am NOT looking forward to this upcoming dental wash/toothbrushing fiasco!

[RedMare01]

I’ve heard this works fairly well, but have not tried it on my kitties (yet).

http://www.amazon.com/Plaque-Off-Cats-60g-Formulation/dp/B004EA2OBK

[GraceLikeRain]

raw bones. raw bones. raw bones.

[cloudy18]

Any kind of bones? Chicken, beef, etc?

[TBKate]

Looking at JB’s thread, it seems people are feeding raw chicken wings? I can guarantee my girl has never had anything but commercially produced food, so I don’t really want to overwhelm her. Can I just grab some wings at the supermarket and give her one? For those of you that feed these raw “treats”, how do you keep kitty from getting raw chicken juice everywhere? I’m in a rental and I don’t think my landlord would be a fan of what that would do to the carpet…

[JB]

Get a cleaver and chip the wings up a little. A point was made on my thread to leave pieces on the bigger side so they have to actually chew, without the temptation to immediately try to swallow, as they might if you try to make pieces more their size

The wings I got are pretty large, so I haven’t given those yet, as I want mine to have a few more snacks of raw before something that large. I got a package of gizzards/hearts as well, and for now it’s just a piece of those - big enough to warrant actual gnawing, small enough to not be overwhelming from a digestive pov.

One might say “just take the wing away after it’s been eaten down a little bit”. Yeah, right, my ass :lol:

if you can block off the kitchen, which I assume has a hard floor, let her eat in there. You can TRY to give it to her on a vinyl placement or something, but odds are she won’t even keep it on that LOL At least if it’s on the (I’m guessing vinyl) kitchen floor, you can mop that up

[TBKate]

@JB;6082808

One might say “just take the wing away after it’s been eaten down a little bit”. Yeah, right, my ass :lol:

JB, I have visions of her running down the hall dragging a juicy half-chewed chicken wing and hiding under my bed (her favorite hidey place). That would make bedtime really fun! :lol:

[Lyric]

Raw bones are a great idea. I’ve also seen some pretty spectacular results with this stuff, although the cases I’ve seen personally were all dogs. It really seems to help loosen up the plaque and get it to come loose when they chew on bones, etc.

http://www.petzlife.com/catalog/oral-care-products.html

[Chall]

For where to feed her, if you have a crate, you could put her in there. Some of my cats used to love to take their " prizes" to a safe dark place to feast on them. Then you can clean the crate.
Raw bones? Sigh, things change. I’m still in the age of “raw bones”=dangerous. That was dog lore, but I thought it applied to cats too.

[JB]

Dog lore that raw bones were dangerous? I never heard that. What do people think dogs (and cats) eat in the wild?

[Chall]

I googled it for backup, found this.
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm208365.htm

I’m not advocating for or against, just saying what I heard at one point in time, but things change.
When I was a child, squirrels got eaten, everything but the tail, by my cats.

[fordtraktor]

My vet gives me some blue stuff in a bottle for my dog and cat with gingivitis – I brush it on daily, or as often as I can get around to it. They like the taste. I also give them “T/D” Science Diet for treats, which is supposed to help with tartar as it is fibrous and bigger than normal cat pellets. It is too high-calorie to be the main meal for my fatties, though so I use it as treats only.

And they get dentals. Trying to avoid that too often, it is $$$$$$$! But you might need to go that route to start off on a cleanish slate.

[JB]

It’s a wonder there are any wild dogs still alive

That said, the link seems to be focused on cooked bones - “Make sure you throw out bones from your own meals in a way that your dog can’t get to them,” and “Some people think it’s safe to give dogs large bones, like those from a ham or a roast”

No. Cooked. Bones. They splinter and cause all sorts of problems.

Giving bones to dogs does/should require some supervision. Take away pieces that are small enough to be swallowed whole but too small to warrant chewing on. Keep an eye on him/check regularly, so if a bone does become lodged somewhere, you can deal with it right then instead of 8 hours later

[Cammie]

Any suggestions for what kind of beef bones I could buy for the kitty? She can’t do chicken of any kind, and I’m assuming her allergies would extend to all fowl.

I’ve bought her a soup bone before as a treat, but its way too huge for her to really be able to do anything with it, other than to gnaw cartilage off the sides. I’ll give her the t-bone or rib-eye off of steaks before I cook them as well, but same thing- way too big for a 7lb cat!

Beef ribs maybe? Give her the shorter end pieces? I don’t have a cleaver or a good knife so I’m limited to what I can do for getting something down to an appropriate size… Thanks.

[Simkie]

Cammie, my first through was ribs, too. Or maybe tail?

How about alternative protein sources? Rabbit? Quail? Goat, even?

[Cammie]

How about alternative protein sources? Rabbit? Quail? Goat, even?

I definitely would be afraid of trying quail with this one. :lol: Given her reaction to chicken, any kind of feathered creature is off limits I think.

I wouldn’t mind trying rabbit or even goat, but I was hoping to try something simple I could pick up locally. I will check at the outlet store, as they have a pretty good raw selection which may include bones.

My gym does sell whole rabbit, but it’s amazingly expensive. Plus given her size, it would take her a very long time to finish it off!

[JB]

if you can cut up the rabbit as soon as you get it, into portion sizes for 1-2 meals, keep enough out for at most a week’s worth of snacking, and take out another portion a day or two in advance of feeding, you can probably get most, if not all of the rabbit eaten before it gets freezer-burn-y.