What You Need To Know!
Most pet owners could easily ignore or even not care too much about their dog’s oral hygiene. After all, dogs are not known to complain if they have a toothache, and missing a day or two of not brushing their teeth seems to be okay.
However, do you know that you are making a fatal mistake if you think that oral hygiene does not play a vital role in your dog’s health? In fact, some of the worst diseases of dogs come from problems in their mouth.
Thus, it is important to know how ignoring your dog’s oral hygiene can lead to serious diseases. Read on to learn more.
Bad Breath, Plaques, And Tartar
Can you imagine not brushing your teeth for a day? How about a week or a month? No doubt, you would soon feel disgusted by just imagining it.
We should feel the same disgust when we don’t brush our dog’s teeth. When we ignore our dog’s oral hygiene, a lot of things can easily get stuck inside your dog’s oral cavity. Food residue, saliva, dead cells, and other materials gather inside your dog’s mouth.
Even soon after your dog ate, bacteria are already accumulating. The smell of bacteria, decaying food, and dead cells all produce that foul odor you smell when you greet your dog, “good morning.”
Not only that, but when various materials build up inside your dog’s mouth, they become plaque that damages teeth and tartar that turns their teeth aged looking and yellowed.
Lowered Immune System
Thankfully, healthy dogs have a strong immune system. Once there are infections in the mouth, gums, and teeth, your dog can effectively overcome it.
It’s good if infections don’t return, but if you don’t do anything about the root cause of the infection, then it would come back over and over again. Constant and continuous infections can eventually lead to a compromised immune system. If your dog can’t fight infection effectively, he can easily get sick and might not even recover anymore.
Organ Damage
Believe it or not, neglecting and ignoring your dog’s oral hygiene can ultimately lead to organ damage, particularly affecting the heart, kidney, and liver.
Here’s how: plaques and tartar are known to inflame, erode, and destroy healthy gums. When gums are not healthy, the root of the teeth is exposed and soon, it will deteriorate — creating small pockets where bacteria can grow.
To make things worse, these bacteria will further irritate the gums, which opens up their blood vessels. When the bacteria enter the blood vessels, it can now easily go to the bloodstream and reach the heart, liver, and kidney. That’s when organ damage happens — something you really don’t want your beloved dog to experience.
Other Complications
There are just so many complications that could happen due to poor oral health. Every one of these complications should be reason enough for you to really see to it that your dog’s oral cavity is not neglected.
Here are some of the other complications that may arise from poor oral hygiene:
- Gingivitis
- Infection in the blood
- Bone infection, weakness, and loss
- Oronasal fistula or the connecting of the nasal and oral cavity
- Loss of appetite
- Vision problem
- Diabetes
- Chronic pain
- Swelling of the face
- Weakness
- Loss of teeth
- And a lot more…
As you can see, neglecting the oral hygiene of your dog can lead to big and serious problems. This is the main reason that you shouldn’t think that oral health is something you can overlook and not suffer its negative consequences. Remember; big problems start small.
The good news is that keeping your dog’s oral health is easier than what you think. All you need is consistency. If you want to learn more, don’t hesitate to speak with your trusted vet. You can even do your own research to truly understand this topic.
Keeping your dog’s oral cavity healthy may sound simple, but it can do wonders for your dog. So, don’t neglect the easy things because in some cases they are the same things that can help your dog stay happy and healthy!
