What I tell people is you've got to make it fun. If you take your dog and put them in a headlock, and say, "Here, we're going to brush your teeth," you're not going to brush that dog's teeth, and that's probably going to be the only chance you ever get to brush that dog's teeth. So we have to work up to it, and we have to make it fun. So you take a little bit of this chicken or beef-flavored toothpaste, and you put it on your finger and let the dog lick it. And that's what you've done today, and you're finished. And tomorrow, you put a little bit on your finger, and you wipe it on their front teeth, and let them lick it. And you're done for the day. And the next day, you wipe a little more. And the next day, you wipe a little more. And when they are used to that, now we might add a little children's soft-bristle finger brush on your finger. And then we do the same thing. We work it around and around.

It's going to take weeks to get to this point. But I have many owners who have done that, and their pets truly like having their teeth brushed. They'll come up to the owner and kind of nudge them because they enjoy having their teeth brushed. And eventually, you can graduate up to a children's soft-bristle toothbrush. Or there are even pet brushes made with two sides, for small areas and large areas. Again, it's got to be fun, or it’s not going to happen.

It smells better to you, but it doesn't taste good to the dogs. They don't like that foamy, frothy stuff that happens with the toothpaste. You need to use pet toothpaste for the pet so that, when they swallow it, it will not bother them. And some of the human toothpastes have xylitol in them, which can be fatal to a pet in high enough quantities.

I get that asked frequently, and I always look the client in the eye and say, "How frequently do you brush your teeth?" Hopefully, it's two or three times a day. That would be ideal. The truth is that I would be ecstatic if you were brushing your pet's teeth two or three times a week. The more, the better. But if you could do it two to three times a week, that will make a big difference in keeping your dog's mouth healthy.

Far and away, the best way is to brush the dog’s teeth. That is the way we take care of our teeth, and that's the way we recommend taking care of your dog's teeth as well. There's nothing that does any better than the abrasive action of brushing. But there are a few points we need to talk about with brushing. The first is, pets don't use human toothpaste. Our toothpaste is made to spit, and pets don't spit very well. So they need pet-specific toothpaste, and they make them in chicken, beef, and seafood flavors. Most dogs enjoy these flavors. But then the big thing is that we've got to make it fun for the pet. So we'll talk about that in the next question.

The other thing is that there are some chews out there. Everyone has seen the chews that say, "will clean your pet's teeth." And believe it or not, some of them do what they say. But there is a seal called the VOHC Seal, which stands for Veterinary Oral Health Council Seal. This seal is on packages for the products that truly do what they say they're going to do. They’ve been clinically shown to remove tartar if they say they truly remove tartar. Things like GREENIES can do that, and there are many other products out there. But there are many products out there that just say, "Clean your pet's teeth" that have no study behind them. It's just somebody putting that on the back. If you see the VOHC Seal, you can be confident that it's going to do at least something to help keep your pet's teeth clean. The solutions, oral treatments, and water treatments are primarily for the breath. They're not going to help clean the teeth, so brushing is number one, two, and three.

That's not an uncommon question. When that time comes, many of us want to think about being able to pass away in our sleep, or I hear many clients say, "I wish they would just go in their sleep," when they know that their dog is uncomfortable and at that end-stage. And again, I believe that's a personal decision. For veterinary medicine, we're able to decide on humane euthanasia when that time comes, so I think that's more of a question directly for the client to talk about personally. But I do feel that humane euthanasia is a kind decision we can make for them.