yorkie with bad teeth

[kathy84]

so my dog sweetie on top of the health stuff i posted in my welcome post, has really bad teeth according to my vet. he said that sweetie's teeth are very typical of yorkies and that a lot of yorkies have terrible teeth because their mouthes are overcrowded with teeth. is that true???

does anyone have any suggestions on what i can do for him, dental work means i have to do surgery on him and i am scared of him being asleep for the surgery with the other health problems he has, but the vet says the normal way to deal with it is to pull out some of his teeth!! i feel awful for him

are there any other ways to handle it, anything i can do at all?

i don't know if it's related but he also has really bad breath, like a fishy breath smell all the time. the vet said to try hills td or something like that to help him out, does anyone have any good ideas on how to fight his bad breath problem too? my bf says he stinks like a dead trout... i just hit him when he says it lol

[yorkielover]

For his breath TD is really good. Another good idea is something like greenies, you can get them at petsmart:
GREENIESGreenies Homepage



Get the small ones so sweetie doesn't break them apart and choke on them. Another option for bad breath, a really annoying one in my opinion, is to brush his teeth. Your vet can give you info on how, but good luck getting him to co-operate

A few other things to keep in mind:

- Use hard food instead of soft food, soft food sticks more to their teeth and builds up tartar/etc on their teeth
- try and get sweetie's teeth cleaned by the vet. warning: this is expensive and given what you said earlier about his health get a good vet opinion on this
- brush his teeth daily if you can, it's like people, it will help a lot

Are you feeding him any treats that are fishy?

[josee_and_jane]

Just brush his/her teeth.

[Jen10]

I wouldn't mess around, I would try to do whatever the vet tells you. From what I hear Yorkies can often lose many teeth if they're not well cared for.

Poor Sweetie, so many problems Where did you get him? I hope not a pet store!

[Jen10]

Oh and Greenies were re-formulated a while back so they're soft now and very unlikely to get stuck in the throat/intestines. I used to work at PetSmart - please don't hold that against me!

[kathy84]

do you still get discounts, jen10?? can you get me some things?

i am scared to tell you all where i think sweetie was from.. my bf picked him up and brought him home to me.. he only started acting funny a little while ago.. i think he might have been from a puppy mill or something like that please don't be mad, i didn't know he was from a mill or a store at first, but i fell in love with him at first sight!! he's so cute!

i'll ask the vet what to do, the brushing i guess isn't that hard of a thing to do, maybe i can get someone else at home to do it.. i'll forget to do it .. anyone know a good doggie toothpaste? does crest make dog toothpaste lol

[yorkielover]

I agree with Jen10, make sure you check with your vet and do what he/she says before you do anything drastic.

Greenies are pretty good. There's some other products that are like greenies; greenies got a bad rap a few years ago when they were hurting dogs unintentionally.

You could always try a different diet, but given how serious it sounds: get Sweetie to the vet! Please keep us posted...

~YorkieLover

[kathy84]

thanks everyone for the info, i'll see if i can get sweetie to the vet this week

[ae_yorkie]

Brush her teeth.

[frankie]

Have you tried chew toys?