My dog has bad teeth & sensitive gums. How to save remaining teeth?

I’m sorry to hear about the tooth loss. It sounds like you are trying hard to maintain good oral health and you should continue this. Definitely try to brush the teeth every day, even twice a day if possible. Pet tooth paste helps but the main benefit is the physical brushing. They also make dental diets which can improve oral health. Some pets also go on pulse therapy antibiotics to help control bacterial populations in the mouth. Unfortunately despite best efforts, dental disease can progress resulting in a he tooth loss. A fair amount of dental disease is found under the gumline and so it is hard to address without a proper dental cleaning. You may ask your veterinarian if there is an option to have you pup cared for by a specialist who may be able to preform a dental cleaning. If this is an option. Best of luck and please feel free to post any additional questions.

If his gums are red and swollen than he may have stomatitis and gingivitis. You can start brushing his teeth with a canine tooth paste and see if that helps. You could also try some chews, like Virbac C.E.T. Enzymatic Oral Hygiene Chews. Depending on the condition of his gums and teeth, he may need to have his teeth cleaned and have any diseased ones extracted, as well as need an antibiotic and anti-inflammatory. Have your vet examine his mouth to decide the best way to treat his problem.

Poor Bonbon! It sounds like he has really severe periodontal disease - this is unfortunately quite common in older small-breed dogs. This means that he has severe infection in his gums, often with bone loss around the base of the teeth and a great deal of pain for the pet as well as horrible breath. To treat this problem effectively, I'm afraid that he will definitely need to see a vet for a full dental cleaning under anesthesia to remove any painful, rotten teeth and get rid of the tartar and infection in the mouth. So ideally, this should be a goal as soon as you are able to do this, even if you need to plan ahead for a while to be able to do it. In the meantime, you can try using a daily oral rinse for dogs such as CET oral dental rinse. This will not remove tartar or treat the infection, but may help a bit with the odor and keep things from getting worse in the meantime.

If dental cleaning is no option then ask your vet to prescribe antibiotics for the gingivitis, and pain medicine such as carprofen. The antibiotics will kill the bacteria that cause the painful gingivitis and the carprofen will take pain away from the dental condition as well as some of her musculoskeletal problems. However, if there is a tooth root abscess, then the tooth needs to come out right away, as this is seriously painful and can cause sepsis with can actually be life-threatening.

This does indeed look uncomfortable! Pictures can be deceiving but it appears there is significant loss of bone and gum tissue above the affected teeth, with tartar and infection build up. Referral to a specialist dentist for xrays to fully assess what is going on under the gum may provide more information but it is likely that extraction of 2 or 3 teeth and repair of the gum over this area will be required in order to eliminate the infection and prevent pain

If your vet told you that the teeth needs to be removed, it's probably pretty bad, in that case there is no effective alternative. Usually the vet will start with a scale and polish treatment, then he will remove the teeth that needs to be removed as he goes.

Truly your dog needs to have dental cleaning under anesthesia to evaluate these teeth and clean up all the tartar and around the gumline. Unfortunately most of the time loose teeth need to be removed and it also sounds like your dog could have some gingival recession that needs to be evaluated. I would make an appointment with your vet for an oral exam and most likely they will want you to schedule a dental procedure. Brushing teeth at home is great and will slow buildup of tartar, but it isn't going to fix the problems that Tiger has right now.