Do I really have to brush my pets' teeth, or are dental chews and a water additive enough?

Yes — brushing is the only home measure that reliably slows the plaque that turns into gum disease, and nothing on a shelf replaces it. Most dogs and cats already have some periodontal disease by around three years old. It is painful, and it is silent, because they carry on eating regardless. Chews, dental diets and water additives help at the margins. Brushing is the intervention.

Frequency matters more than people expect: daily beats three times a week by a wide margin, because plaque mineralises into tartar within days, and a brush does nothing to tartar.

Train it over two or three weeks, never by force. For a few days, just let them lick the paste off your finger. Then touch the finger to the gum line and stop. Then a finger-brush or a soft toothbrush for two seconds, and stop while it is still easy. Then build. You are aiming for a pet who walks towards the brush — yes, including the cat. Use pet toothpaste only; never human toothpaste, because some contain xylitol (birch sugar), which is severely toxic to dogs, and the foaming agents upset stomachs. Only the outer surfaces along the gum line matter. You can ignore the inside.

On the anaesthesia-free cleaning: don't. It scrapes the visible crown, which was never the problem. It does nothing below the gum line, where the disease actually lives, it cannot take dental x-rays, and it hands you back a mouth that looks clean and is still rotting — so the real treatment gets postponed by a year. A frightened, restrained animal beside sharp instruments is a risk in itself.

A proper dental — an anaesthetised exam, x-rays, and cleaning below the gum line — is what actually treats this, and your vet will weigh each animal's age and health when planning the anaesthetic. Breath you turn your head away from, blood on a toy, chewing on one side, a cat dropping food or pawing at her face: those get booked, not watched. Cats have a specific extra — painful lesions that erode into the tooth and are invisible without x-rays.