Have you checked your dog's teeth lately?

Does your dog's breath smell?
Do you brush your dog's teeth daily?
Did you know more than 80% of dogs show signs of gum disease by the age of three?

Caring for your pet's teeth and gums is as important as caring for your own.

Pet dental health is a subject that is so important for your pet's wellbeing, but is also unfortunately not usually discussed until it's too late. Pet owners are genuinely unaware of the daily dental maintenance needed to care for your pet's teeth and gums. It is not until you are hit with a vet bill in the thousands that you are informed of the importance of caring for your pet's teeth.

Periodontal disease prevention

Proper dental care for your dog starts with taking a look into their mouth. Does your dog's teeth look white and clean, or do they look yellow and with tartar build-up? (Don't forget to check those very back teeth!) Does your dog's gums look pink and healthy, or do they look red and inflamed? Does your dog's breath smell OK or bad? If you are not confident looking yourself, ask your vet to take a look.

Regular dental care should start at 2 years of age. If your dog is over 2 years of age and you haven't started dental care, then now is the time! If your dog's teeth already have tartar build up, if their breath smells, or if their gums look inflamed, they will require a vet check before any at-home dental care will help. Your dog may need a clean and scale (and maybe some rotten teeth pulled) to get their teeth back to pearly whites. Only then will your daily at-home care help to PREVENT any further build up or problems.

Daily dental care

Taking care of your dog's teeth is a daily responsibility. Over 80% of dogs over the age of three show signs of gum disease, and this is mainly because of improper dental care by the dog's owner. Periodontal disease is painful for your dog! And not mention, very expensive when dental work is needed.

Keeping your dog’s teeth and gums healthy can be easy and there are so many different ways that you can help. Stylist to the Dogs has put together a list of 10 tips on ways you can help keep your dog's teeth squeaky clean and their mouths fresh. Choose which way suits your dog best, or you can mix and match! Just remember to use at least one of these methods at least 3 times a week.

Brush

Brushing my dog’s teeth daily is my choice of dental care for my dogs. You can buy special dog toothbrushes (that slip onto the end of your finger) and dog toothpaste to clean your dog’s teeth just like you do your own.

Carrots

Carrots are a great healthy and safe chew snack for your dog! They have many nutritional benefits, as well as cleaning their teeth as they chew! A very cheap and natural way to treat your dog daily.

Dryfood MYTH

It is a common misconception that dry food alone will clean your dog's teeth! Unless it is specific dental dryfood, your dog will still need to crunch on something a lot more abrasive and chewy to get their teeth clean. Dogs bite down on dryfood with their front teeth but most of the time will miss those large teeth right at the back of their mouth. And some dogs don’t chew at all when eating small kibble!

Organic toothpaste

Mix coconut oil with organic cinnamon powder and bam! You have natural toothpaste for your dog! Just keep it in the fridge and take out a portion 20 minutes before use.

Dental chews

Don't think your pet would let you brush their teeth? Feed them a Greenies dental treat each day as an alternative! These dental treats are specifically designed to clean your dog’s teeth as they chew, and keep their mouths fresh.

Raw bones

Dogs have a natural instinct to chew and they absolutely love raw meaty bones to sink their teeth into! Giving your dog regular raw meaty bones will not only help clean their teeth, but will keep your pet happy and less destructive!

Vet teeth scale

A veterinary teeth scale and polish is very important for canine dental health. If your dog's teeth are looking worse for wear, a dental could be just what they need to prevent gum disease before it's too late!

Dental food

Dental specific dryfood is a great way to keep your dog's teeth and gums healthy! The dryfood is made specific to help brush and scrub your dog's teeth as they chew. They also have active ingredients that help combat bacteria that cause tartar build-up.

Dental toys

Does your dog love chew toys? Then a great way to clean their teeth is to give them dental specific chew toys! There is a wide variety of affordable toys to choose from and they will last a long time. Teeth care can be fun for your dog!

Dried treats

While doing dental checks this month I noticed an 8 year old dog with beautiful white teeth. I asked her owner what she does for her teeth and she said she treats her dogs with a natural dried pet treat from Clear Dog Treats every couple of days since they were pups. This is a great recommendation and a great alternative for dogs that don't like raw bones or having their teeth brushed!

Canine dental care is serious! Now you have all the information you need to care for your dog’s teeth. There are so many teeth cleaning options available, one to suit even the most stubborn dog! As a pet owner, dental care is YOUR responsibility and now you have no excuse for nothing but beautiful, white chompers!

Til next time,

Davina Dewar

Qualified Pet Stylist for Stylist to the Dogs Narangba

Fleas are back!

The tiny biters have been spotted!

Are your dogs protected?

That’s right! Just as we were starting to believe they weren't coming back, (and that we had finally won the war against these horrid insects!) FLEAS have resurfaced and are out in force!

As the weather gets warmer, Flea Season is approaching and so now it’s time for all us dog owners to stop being complacent and guard our pets against these pesky parasites.

So what are your options for flea prevention this season? Recently, there have been many new flea-prevention products hitting our shelves and this gives us many options! There is still the trusty topical treatment, there is also tablets that can last up to 3 months, and now there is even a natural flea-prevention option. So now we have no excuse not to protect our pets from an itchy and irritable flea infestation!

Chewable tablets (eg. Nexgard or Bravecto) 

While Nexgard will protect your pet for one month, Bravecto claims to protect against fleas for up to 3 months and paralysis ticks for up to 4 months.

PROS – well isn’t it obvious? We only need to give this product to our dog 4 times a year! It is also FDA approved and its testing period produced great results, claiming to be one of the safest flea and tick prevention products for your dog. Since these chewable tablets have become readily available, I have personally heard great reviews from users. I have trialled them myself and I have to report that, yes, it did seem to keep the fleas at bay.

CONS – The cons of this product come into play when we dig a little deeper into HOW these ingestible preventions work. The product reaches the tissue level just under the skin of your dog. When a flea or tick bites your dog it ingests the product and dies. So what does this mean? It means that your dog must get BITTEN before the product will kill any parasites. The active ingredient affects the nervous system in insects, but has no effect on a canine’s nervous system. What you really need to think about before you feed this product to your dog is that this product is INGESTED. While the products are FDA approved and claim to be safe for your dog, the bottom line still remains - your dog is eating a pesticide.

Topical treatments (eg. Frontline or Advantage)

So what is another choice for flea prevention? The good old topical application, such as Frontline or Advantage. Topical treatments are applied to the back of your dog’s neck once a month.

PROS – Your dog does not need to ingest this product and so in general it has fewer chances of side effects. These products have also been on the market for a lot longer and so it is more widely accepted as being safe to use and effective. But the biggest PRO of them all – topical treatments work by creating a barrier on your dog that repels fleas and ticks BEFORE they have the chance to bite your dog! They also kill ALL stages of the flea cycle, not just the adult fleas.

CONS – because they have been on the market for some time now, parasites have started to build immunity against the product, which is making it less effective. Another con to think about is that this product is poisonous to humans and we should make sure it doesn't come into contact with our skin or be ingested. This can especially prove troublesome when, like me, we have little children running around that just love to touch our pets!

A natural alternative (e.g Diatomaceous Earth)

So is there a safer product out there that works as a natural pesticide? Well I think I have found one! This product is called Diatomaceous Earth.

Diatomaceous Earth is a fine flour-like powder made of the microscopic remains of fossilized diatoms, a type of algae. Diatom cell walls are made of silica, a component of glass, and fleas and other insects with a hard exoskeleton are susceptible to the glass-sharp edges of the microscopic diatoms. The silica shards cut through the waxy exoskeleton surface, effectively drying out the flea and resulting in death to these types of insects and their larvae. Diatomaceous earth is not toxic, does not cause any residual or lingering issues, and because it is a mechanical killer versus a chemical killer, the fleas will never develop immunity to it.

Diatomaceous Earth is a non-toxic way to rid your home of fleas, but only if you're careful to use it safely and appropriately. It is a very fine powder that can dry out the skin or cause irritation to the throat and lungs if breathed in. So safety measures must be followed when using this product, and I suggest doing your own research before trialling this product. I have trialled this product and (when handled properly) it is a great natural alternative to a chemical pesticide for flea prevention.

Test and Try

Different products will work best for different dogs and their lifestyle. The most important thing is that we as pet owners are doing something to minimise our dog’s exposure to these nasty creatures. Remember that it can take up to 3 months to completely eradicate your dog from a flea infestation and that you need to also kill the other life stages of the fleas within the dog’s environment.

Have you tried any of the products mentioned. such as Nexgard or Diatomaceous Earth? If so, please comment with your experience! The more we talk about these products the more facts we all have to make an informed decision!

By Davina Dewar

Does your Dog need grooming through Winter? The answer will surprise you.

With a bit of a late start this year, Winter is finally well and truly upon us. With a chill in the air and temps dropping to below 10 degrees overnight, we think about our fur babies and how they must be feeling the cold like we do. So with this comes ways to keep them warm, including keeping them inside at night, taking out the knitted doggie jumper, and of course, growing out their coat. While keeping their coat longer does mean less or no length clipped off, it does not translate to less or no grooming.

The confusion comes from a misinterpretation of the word “grooming”. Grooming does NOT necessarily mean shaving the coat. Grooming can be a tidy-up of the coat, while leaving the length long or even untouched.

Ultimately, a long-haired breed dog should be groomed once every 6 weeks. So what happens to a dog’s coat that has been left to grow long for 3-4 months over Winter without maintenance grooming (bathing, brushing, or knot removal)? Most of the time the coat will start to matt and then there is only one solution – shave the coat short under the matting. Then you are left with a shaved dog while the weather is still cold, which is what you have been trying to avoid by letting the coat grow over Winter!

A matted dog being shaved

You can get your dog groomed in Winter while still leaving the coat long. You have 2 options – a full groom with a longer length left on the coat, or a mini groom with no length taken off the coat. A dog only needs about 2cms of coat to still keep it warm through Winter. This can be achieved by requesting a number 3 length clip on your dog. You can even request a longer length than this, provided the coat is free of matting and knots. A mini groom, on the other hand, is a maintenance groom between full grooms to keep the coat knot-free, while still trimming hygiene areas such as the belly, feet and face. Mini-grooms start from as little as $35.

Daisy's Winter groom

So do you think your dog needs more or less grooms through Winter? Many dog owners will get this answer wrong, which is evident in the drop of grooming bookings with the drop of temperature. The answer is MORE often! This is because to maintain a longer length coat, your dog will need to be groomed more often to prevent knotting and matting. In Summer, you can get your dog shaved very short and this can last up to 3 months before needing to be shaved again. Whereas in Winter, if you leave the coat to grow without maintenance, it will start to mat and you won’t be able to maintain its length for the entire duration of the cold months.

So what is my professional opinion about dog grooming through Winter? Keep up with your dog’s usual grooming cycle through Winter, but ask for a longer length to be maintained, or alternate between mini grooms and full grooms. A dog’s coat can seem knot-free one day and within a week can become matted beyond repair. Keeping up with your dog’s grooming this Winter will prevent that shock you (and your dog) get when your groomer must shave your dog short before the weather starts to warm up!

Your trusted dog groomer,

Davina Dewar.

What can you treat your dog with this Easter?

It's Easter time! For us humans that means treating ourselves to yummy chocolate Easter Eggs and forgetting about the scales for that one day of the year. But what about our furry friends? Can they be treated with just a small bit of chocolate? Well the answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT. Chocolate is actually poison for dogs and can make them very sick. So what can you treat them with? Well why not try a homemade, dog friendly Easter treat?

I have just made a batch of Easter Egg doggie cookies to give to my grooming clients as a special Easter gift this year. And may I say, for someone who is horrible at baking human sweets, they turned out pretty fantastic! Well, my three taste-testers thought they were worth eating!

When baking for dogs just remember that they can't eat a lot of human foods as their diet is a lot more simple than ours. So when making cookies, make sure you use whole-wheat flour and don't use any additives or flavour enhancers. I natural product that is fine for dogs to eat (and a flavour that they love) is peanut butter. Also remember to keep it simple and plain for any decorations or icing as well, using just a flour and water mixture with no added sugar.

These cookies are easy to make and can be used at anytime of the year (just cut the cookies into different themed shapes). Here is my recipe!

Ingredients - 

½ cup Peanut Butter
2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
1 cup Oats (ground to a powder consistency)
1 cup Hot Chicken Broth
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 Tbsp Honey

All you need to do is combine all the ingredients and roll out the dough. Cut your cookie shapes and then bake them in the oven at 180 degrees celcius for 10 minutes. For the icing, combine whole wheat flour and water until you have made a paste and add a few drops of food colouring. After applying the icing to the cookies, bake for a further 2 minutes.

These cookies are a yummy and safe treat for your dogs this Easter. Remember that chocolate is poison for dogs, and so make sure your dogs are not around (or closely watched) when your children are hunting Easter Eggs left by the Easter Bunny!

Happy Easter!

Davina Dewar

It's Flea and Tick prevention time!

Flea and Tick treatment that lasts 3-4 months!

Can it be true?

As the weather gets warmer, Flea and Tick Season is approaching and so now it’s time for all us pet owners to guard our pets against fleas and ticks. So what are our options and which products work the best? This year new prevention products have now hit the Australian shelves that claim to protect your dog from fleas for up to 3 months and ticks for up to 4 months! Flea and tick prevention are so important for our pets, however as a pet owner myself I know how hard it is to remember to protect your pets – especially if tick prevention needs to happen every 2 weeks.

So what are your options for flea and tick prevention this season? This post will compare 2 options out there - topical and oral treatments, and will discuss their pros and cons, and what other users have experienced. We will be talking about dogs as I’m sorry to say that so far there are no tick prevention products for cats!

The new products on the market are called Nexgard and Bravecto. 

They are both an oral chewable tablet. While Nexgard will protect your pet for one month, Bravecto claims to protect against fleas for up to 3 months and paralysis ticks for up to 4 months. PROS – well isn’t it obvious? We only need to give this product to our dog 4 times a year! It is also FDA approved and its testing period produced great results, claiming to be one of the safest flea and tick prevention products for your dog. CONS – It is new to the market and so not much is known or reported about consumer use and its effectiveness on a wide scale market. The stories I have read have mixed reactions, with some users saying it worked great with no side effects and others claiming they still found fleas and ticks on their dogs or that their dog had a chronic reaction that affected the dogs liver. When digging deeper on these reactions, it seems that this is the general consensus for any oral prevention, including other flea prevention products widely known in the market such as Comfortis and Panoramis. And this is because users may not be educated on HOW oral preventions work. The product reaches the tissue level just under the skin of your dog. When a flea or tick bites your dog it ingests the product and dies. So what does this mean? It means that your dog must get BITTEN before the product will kill any parasites! So no wonder why owners still found the parasite on their dog! The active ingredient affects the nervous system in insects but has no effect on a canine’s nervous system. So I don’t know about you, but I’m not too happy with the idea of my dog getting bitten in order to be protected! And what about the other claims - that dogs have displayed chronic side effects? This product is INGESTED! While the products are FDA approved and claim to be safe for your dog, the bottom line still remains - your dog is eating a pesticide.

So what is another choice for flea and tick prevention? The good old topical application, such as Frontline Plus or Advantix. PROS – Your dog does not need to ingest this product and so in general it has fewer chances of side effects. These products have also been on the market for a lot longer and so it is more widely accepted as being safe to use and effective. But the biggest PRO of them all – topical treatments work by creating a barrier on your dog that repels fleas and ticks BEFORE they have the chance to bite your dog! They also kill ALL stages of the flea cycle, not just the adult fleas. CONS – because they have been on the market for some time now, parasites have started to build immunity against the product, which is making it less effective. Also, the fact that you have to remember to apply the product fortnightly for paralysis tick prevention (which also becomes costly).

So what will I be choosing for my dogs this flea and tick season? I think I will stick with what has worked for me in the past and that is a topical treatment (Frontline Plus to be precise). I might wait a bit longer before trying a product that is brand new to the market just to be sure. After all, why stop using something if it is still working? And in regards to being more convenient using a longer lasting product? Maybe I should just stop being so lazy! It only takes 2 minutes every 2 weeks (and a simple 2 weekly reminder that I set myself on my iPhone) to protect my dogs from a deadly parasite!

Different products will work best for different dogs and their lifestyle. The most important thing is that we as pet owners are doing something to minimise our dog’s exposure to these nasty creatures. Remember that it can take up to 3 months to completely eradicate your dog from a flea infestation and that you need to also kill the other life stages of the fleas within the dog’s environment. And for tick prevention, no product is 100% effective and so don’t forget to keep up with regular checks of your dog’s coat.

Have you tried any of the new products such as Nexgard or Bravecto? If so, please comment with your experience! The more we talk about these products the more facts we all have to make an informed decision!

Your monthly dog news,

By Davina Dewar