If you’ve checked out a few other cat blogs over the past 28 days, you might have noticed that February is National Pet Dental Health Month. I thought I was going to get out of posting about it, except that at my last vet checkup, they noticed that I had some tartar. Not a lot, and certainly not enough to warrant a teeth cleaning under anesthesia — just “some.” Well, it did not take long for my human — she of the dental floss and six-month checkups — to pull out these implements of torture that she has had sitting in the back of a cupboard for who-knows-how-long.
The sight of these did not thrill me.
My dread grew as my human proceeded to smear some tooth gunk on the little rubber toothbrush (she felt it would give her “more control”… although she apparently could not control getting the gunk all over her hands). When she turned around, however, I was gone!
She caught up with me in the dining room. Resistance was futile!
BLEAGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!
Then she wanted to get a photo of my vanilla-fresh clean teeth. I resisted that too. Even worse, this all happened on Sunday. I thought Sundays were supposed to be easy!
2021 Somali Cat Wall Calendar, Starring Summer
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Sparkle – after seeing that photo of you, I am wondering if the phrase, “if looks could kill” started with you on one of those dental days.
Hmm I need to confess that I have never tried it. Fortunately the Vet said my teeth are okay!
You have such a beautiful smile!
😉
purrs
Gahh, scary! I have been trying to be better about cleaning my kitties’ teeth, and I recently got a great tip: I sneak up on them when they are sleeping! And also, I use a piece of gauze wrapped around my finger instead of a toothbrush – it seems to work better, and my fingers are smaller so I can get in there better.
Oh noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! The Red Cross does not stock a sufficient blood supply for my Human to even ATTEMPT anything like this. You poor dear. Come here and Spitty will groom your pretty little head and help you forget all about this.
Love your pearly whites, Sparkle! We feel for you about the brushing part but we LOVE the vanilla toofpaste our mom gets for us. If we could just eat it everything would be ok 🙂
Pip, Smidgen, Minnie, and Hollie
Oh Sparkle, we feel for you and your teeth. Mommy used to try and brush our teeth too. But she soon gave up and now lets the Vet take care of the dirty work for her.
Vanilla? Are they kidding? Why couldn’t they come up with tuna…or better yet, cheddar cheese flavor. Yeah, I might let my mom brush my teeth with melted cheddar!
Purrs,
Cory
reporting from her iPaw, somewhere over Georgia
I’m with you on the cheese, except my preference would be a nicely aged Parmesan.
Vanilla flavored? That is just so wrong! At least your teeth are very pretty now Sparkle!
Sparkle! Do you realize you have caused mom to think of that for ME!?!?
Sparkle
Don’t let me Mom see this post!
purrin
xoxox
he he – I’m happy your ooman went after your toothies. You don’t want to end up like me, so keeps brushing.
I guess your Mom wants your teeth to sparkle as much as the rest of you!
I tried doing this with Dante a few years ago, and finally gave up. It was just too difficult. You try holding down a 21 lb. cat with one arm while opening his mouth and brushing with the other. It just ain’t gonna happen!
Congrats to your Mom, though, for her success.
Of course I weigh less than a third of Dante’s weight, so there is not so much of me to handle! I bet he is one powerful kitty.
Yuck. I get that but at least there is no brush for mine…
Wow that’s scary stuff! We hope Mom doesn’t get any ideas.
The Florida Furkids and Angel Sniffie
Wow Sparkle,
Your Mom is so brave. If mom tried that on me SHE would be in the huspot hosspitt She would be at the doctor!!! Well done Mom. Oh mom gives me lots of Hill’s Science Plan Oral Car teeth crunchies so, so far, I have good teefs.
* high paw *
Dash Kitten
Oh no! I have to get my teeth “brushed” too. ~shiver~
Most definitely cruel and unusual, Sparkle!
Well, havin Mom to it at home is probly better than the vet knockin ya out. But we agree it sure wasnt a Easy Like Sunday Sunday for ya!
Would you rather lose your teeth?
Sparkle we feel your pain! Our mom tried that with us when Kirzon first started to have tooth problems (he is a tartar growing machine for some reason) but she couldn’t get ANY of us to cooperate (she is thinking of trying again with all the youngin’s at least). We think your teeth do look super pretty and shiny after the brushing!!
Oh I would hate that but at least it would be better than having to have teeth out like me.. Your teeth look realy white.. Hugs GJ xx
Awwwwwwwwwwwww, sweet and gorgeous Sparkle….our humans can be so unkind to us at times…..but the good outweighs the bad, in our opinion.
We send you our love, xxxxxxx
Oh my goodness, yes, Sunday is supposed to be easy…and that didn’t look the least bit easy!
Dear Sparkle,
Mommy brushes both of the hairy slobbery sister’s teeths every morning, but she would never ever get anything near my mouth! She puts the PlaqueOff on our food! BTW your teeths look fabulous darling!
Nellie
That was a pretty impressive close up! But overall, we think it was mean of your Mom to do this to you.
Sparkle last time we went to the v-e-t she checked our teeth and told mum we would need them cleaning soon and showed her the evidence – for young cats they weren’t great!! Mum can home with some stuff to rub along our teeth but we decided NO WAY and defeated her.
She was talking to a friend who fosters cats who told her about PlaqueOff which is made from selected seaweeds – it has no preservatives, sugar and gluten – it has been dried and ground up like dust. There is a tiny spoon in the container and we both get half a spoonful sprinkled over our food every day – we don’t even notice it. Mum is sure it is working from a quick look but will give us another check this week to be sure.
Derry will (barely) tolerate the mom rubbing toothpaste on his few remaining teeth with her finger. Forget about Nicki altogether! So we’re pretty impressed your mom could do that to you, Sparkle!
Oh no! this is giving me nightmares! My mom always says I have stinky cat breath. Do you think she’s planning on doing this to ME too??
Harley gets lots of tarter on his teeths. He gets PetzLife oral gel on his teeths; my Mommeh just puts some on a q-tip and rubs it around. He hates it!
Sorry Sparkle that you had a darn toothy Sunday. Now see, you have giving our Mom ideas about brushing our teeth. But we would be just like you and get our of dodge. Most of the time she can’t catch us, so we are pretty safe. At least you do have nice clean teeth and so you can eat many more treats.
Oh no, Sparkle! We think we got some of that tube stuff in the back of our cupboard too! We hope our mom doesn’t get any ideas now!
Eeeek!! We have a very similar brush, and we don’t like it one little bit. Our toothpaste is allegedly chicken flavour, but from the way we react mum doesn’t think it is very convincing.
OMC! We get denta-bits instead. They are treats that yoo crunch and they help clean yoor teef.
OMC !!!! Sparkle !!!!! Scary !!!!
Are you OK. ?
I think so… except my mouth tastes like vanilla! Ick. Why don’t they make this stuff in chicken flavor? Or do they, and my human is just holding out?