Unless your cat is crunching through bones and tearing into muscle meat his teeth are not getting cleaned, his gums are receding and he is well on the road to gingivitis. He looses his teeth and he’s on a diet of mush.

Bijou at the home dentist

This, perhaps, is the only justification for feeding our cats dry food – kibble. It does help clean his teeth – but it is not the answer to healthy teeth and gums, the vets all tell us. Brushing is. How often? At least every other day or don’t bother at all, Martin Zucker tells us in his book on natural remedies for cats.

But how do you brush your cat’s teeth? Actually, it’s not that hard. Hold him gently but firmly and pry open his jaws.

Gently open his mouth

Use a tooth brush designed for cats – available from any vet or pet store, and a tooth paste made for cats. See the last image.

Be sure to brush the front and rear teeth (fortunately, cats don’t have a lot of teeth), both sides of his mouth.

If your cat has the beginning of gingivitis, gums will be red and raw looking), daily brushing will stop the decline and restore health to his gums and teeth. We only recently learned of all this so are on a program of getting Bijou back to good dental health.

Brushing his back teeth

At first Bijou was really resistant to having his teeth brushed but he pretty much takes it as a matter of course now.

It helps in this to reward him after the brushing with something he likes. Though not crazy about having his teeth brushed, he loves  to have his body brushed so he gets a nice vigorous brushing after his teeth brushing.

Within moments the teeth cleaning is forgotten

Below is the tooth paste and brush our vet recommended. There are others.

Chicken flavored tooth paste for cats

It is commonly known that dry food is convenient for us, harmful for cats. It lacks freshness, vitality and protein and a diet of it can substantially contribute to feline urologic syndrome, skin disorders, arthritis, kidney failure and constipation.

Cats were originally desert animals and their kidneys are designed to be extremely efficient in conserving water. Their diet of prey contained 70 percent body fluids. In kibble there is something like 5 to 10 percent of moisture. A steady diet of kibble will substantially overwork your cat’s kidneys and his health will deteriorate.

But they really like it. It’s a lot like eating fast food – a burger and fries because of the very clever ingredients that go into dry food designed to make cats addicts to the stuff and it can be hard to ween your cat from it. But here’s a trick that works for us, at least a fair portion of the time.

Bijou getting petted before digging in

Eating is (should be) a positive emotional experience so if you can sort of wake up the emotions in your cat at feeding time he may transfer that good feeling to the wet food he is looking at though it was the dry he wanted. Set the bowl in front of your cat, then pet or brush him  – do something you know he likes. My wife gives our Bijou a vigorous petting with the wet food bowl right there and though moments before he was asking for the dry and ignoring the wet, he then digs right in and seems more than content with his meal.We are in the process of eliminating the dry, having learned what we now know but have not completed the process. It is not a good idea to abruptly change your cat’s diet. It needs to be done gradually and this technique of making your cat happy at feeding time really helps.

I tried it myself this evening. I had given Bijou a bowl of wet food about a half hour earlier and he didn’t touch it. He followed me into the kitchen from outside and kept looking up at where the box of dry is and back at me. I planted him in front of his bowl of wet food and gave him a brisk rubdown and sure enough. He is eating the wet as I type. This little technique works.

Bijou after a satisfying meal of wet food

Below is a comparative video demonstrating the Drinkwell Platinum Cat Fountain and  one of my handmade, ceramic cat fountains. Not mentioned in the video are all the undesirable attributes of the plastic fountains: Very hard to clean, harbor bacteria, can cause chin acne, etc…

Ceramic fountains, on the other hand, don’t scratch and don’t harbor bacteria, are easy to clean, have no undesirable effects and are much better looking.