What to avoid and what you buy when it comes to the maintenance of your dog's dental health.
Selecting appropriate chews for your dog...
Firstly, I'd like to address the misconception that kibble is good for a dog's dental health. Due to the fact that dogs lack salivary amylase (the enzyme responsible for breaking down starch), kibble is in fact counterproductive to your dogs dental health, and acts as an adhesive agent, encouraging he growth of plaque and tartar in your dog's mouth.
In the same way, many dental 'chews' available on the market are also responsible for deterioration in dental health condition. High starch ingredients are used to bind the chew to form a specific or marketable shape.
So we'll move onto healthier alternatives;
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Start with a healthy, fresh food diet. When prepared properly, a fresh food diet should contain low-starch plant matter (no pasta, rice, potato, etc) that's already broken down via finely chopping, blending, pulsing or steaming for easy digestion.
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Raw meaty bones should be a staple in the diet of the majority of dogs, and when selected and fed appropriately will do most of the cleaning work required for your dog's teeth.
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Seaweed supplements such as Laila & Me's 'Feed the Weed' or 'Plaque Away' contains a seaweed found in Norway that effectively prevents plaque and tartar buildup. It's highly palatable AND natural!
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Feed treats that promote good chewing and dental health! Your looking for natural, minimal ingredient chews that resemble their natural state. These include: Bully Sticks, Goat Horns, Cow Hooves and Himalayan Cheese Chews and Deer Antler.
Himalayan Cheese Chews, while they have been around for a very long time, are kind of perceived as the new kid on the block due to their increasing popularity of late.
Made of hardened milk, they provide a tough, but delicious and nutritious chewing challenge to help your dog's clean their teeth. We've just had them arrive in store and I will give one each to Maggie and Otis tonight, and watch them eat, to see how they like them (like a weirdo).
With the exclusion of Deer Antler, anything I've mentioned above can be found via the links below, and posted or delivered to you from our store. Otherwise, if you're local, pop on in with your pup and let them check them out.
Shop the products mentioned in this article here.
Let us know how you go if you try any of these!
