February is Pet Dental Health Month!
Dental exams uncover abnormalities in teeth and the soft tissue of the mouth. Oral disease may indicate secondary health problems. By three years of age 70% of cats show signs of oral disease. Some warning signs are: bad breath, inflamed or bleeding gums, sensitivity around the mouth or difficulty chewing. Dental disease doesn’t just affect the mouth; internal organs such as the heart, liver and kidneys can be affected – causing sometimes serious illness. Good oral hygiene can had many healthy years to your cat’s life. It is best to start working on home oral care when you cat is a young kitten; if this stage of your cat’s life has gone by – no worries, you can still teach most older cats new tricks. The key is to introduce oral hygiene very gradually and make it a fun thing for your cat. The any of our technicians would be more than happy to show you how to properly brush your cat’s teeth at home and give you different options for home oral health care. It is important to have an oral exam and/or a dental cleaning performed on your cat first.
Fun facts about your cat’s teeth:
· Between the ages of 2 – 4 weeks your cat will start growing baby teeth; they will usually grow 26 teeth in total.
· Around 3 – 4 months of age a cat will begin to lose the baby teeth (usually swallowing them) and grow their adult teeth – 30 teeth in total for most cats.
· Unlike the molars of humans and herbivorous animals like cows and horses, cats’ molars don’t have flat surfaces designed for grinding grains and other vegetable matter. They use their sharp, serrated molars to shear muscle and connective tissue off the bones and cut them up into chunks they can swallow whole. Cats can only move their jaws up and down, whereas we humans can move our jaws from side to side.
· The cats’ incisors make “purr-fect” grooming accessories! With the incisors a cat can catch a flea and swallow it whole; they can also help the cat to work out a matt or plant matter out of the cats’ coat.
· When a cat gets tooth decay the “cavities are known as resorptive (neck) lesions; starting at the neck of the tooth – even under the gum line – not on the crown of the tooth as in humans.
· Cats do quite well with no teeth at all – those cats that have lost all their teeth due to decay or oral disease live normal, happy lives (provided they are indoor cats with access to food), many of them even eat dry food.