Go ahead. Lift up your pet's upper lip. Opening the mouth is unnecessary. Just lift up the lip and see how the teeth look. Are they white and clean with smooth pink gums or are there brownish deposits of tartar extending from the gums halfway up the teeth? If the tartar situation is advanced, there may be teeth that are completely encased in tartar. How is your pet's breath? If you see tartar deposits and your pet's breath is unpleasant, it is time to consider teeth cleaning.

ORAL HEALTH AFFECTS THE ENTIRE BODY

Plaque is the mixture of saliva, bacteria, and food particles that bathes each tooth. We brush it away every time we brush our teeth. If we don't brush our teeth, the plaque mineralizes into tartar in a matter of hours, usually around the neck of the tooth (where the tooth emerges from the gum line). If the tartar is not cleaned away, it will continue to deposit on the tooth and destroy the attachment of the tooth causing pain and loss of chewing function.

But all those bacteria in the mouth seed the rest of the body whenever the pet chews. The immune system handles it pretty well but all that infectious material is looking for a place to lodge elsewhere in the body. Alternatively, the infection travels the length of the tooth root and weakens the bone leading to broken jaw, chronic nasal discharge and/or sneezing.

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