Teeth and Diet in the Canine

Teeth and Diet

Due to improvements in life-style, dogs now live longer. Their teeth do not always do as well and this can detract from their quality of life in their twilight years. One of the best ways of preserving your pet’s teeth is to feed a quality dry nugget diet, which also helps their gums and lips. Dogs are well-equipped with teeth to crunch and chew, tinned foods just don’t offer this. This is why dry food should usually be fed dry. If you want to help your pet further - the following tips may be of use :-

Offer dogs a raw hide chew strip after each meal to clean the teeth. The best are simple dried strips of leather, not reconstituted and coloured leather strips or complicated knotted leather bones or elaborate toys.

Use a dog tooth paste, not a human one which will froth as pets cannot spit it out. Some of these are designed to reduce scale even if just put on food. One idea is to put tooth paste on a chew so that the teeth are brushed whilst chewing.

Use a nylon-type chew which throws up spickules to clean teeth as they are chewed. By all means use bones, but there are some guide lines. The best bone to get is the shaft of a cow’s thigh with the "nobbly bits" cut off. You should give it raw, but remove as much of the meat and bone-marrow as possible before hand. When the bone is chewed down to a size that can be swallowed, it should be thrown away. Always remember with bones that they can bring out a primitive guarding behaviour in even the most mild pet.