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Originally Posted by canana  I'm looking into getting my two some raw bones to chew on too. Do you have any troubles taking away the last bit of the bone from them when it becomes a choking hazard? And also, have you noticed that their teeth are still all pearly white? If so, do you still bring them in for dental cleaning?
Thanks for the photo - think I will look into the boar rib bones. I want to make sure it's a good size and won't chip/break their teeth! |
I find that with certain bones, the ones that they can chew down to where a little bit is left and it is a choking hazard, yes I find it really hard to get it from them. So what I do is just hold one end of the bone covered with a paper towel and let them chew on the other end while I hold it. I usually do that while we're watching one of our favourite shows or something like that. Once it gets down to a small size, I just throw it out.
Other types of bones are so hard I find that it never becomes a choking hazard because it's so hard that it can't wear down or wear away. I'm always careful with those types of bones because I don't want them to hurt their teeth by chewing down really hard on a bone that doesn't have any give in it. With the super hard bones, I feel ok giving them it as long as the bone has a lot of curves and angles on it so that they can't get that hard direct pressure on their teeth when they clamp down on it. But my preference is definitely for a bone that is hard but has some give to it and can wear away as they chew on it.
The teeth on Théo are very nice and white with very little plaque buildup. He has turned 2 and just a month ago he was at the clinic for a checkup and the vet said he doesn't need a teeth cleaning. So I'm pretty happy about that. He's 2 and he's never had a dental and still doesn't need one. In the future I'm sure he'll need a dental and he will get it when there's noticeable plaque and tarter buildup. Once a significant amount of tarter is on the teeth, it doesn't really come off unless you use some sort of scaling tool. (Some people do that at home even though they don't have training to use dentistry tools and their dog isn't under anaesthetia. I would never recommend doing that). I view the raw bones as just kinda as a toothbrush that will help delay and reduce the number of dental cleanings needed. But if they need a professional dental cleaning, I take my kiddos to the clinic.
Maezie has had to have a dental even though she gets raw bones. She had a couple teeth in the back of her mouth come in sideways, and the way they were in her mouth it was basically like a pit for plaque. So those teeth had to be removed. She also had to have all her bottom incisor teeth removed. Those incisors were very nice and white looking teeth with basically no plaque buildup on them, but x rays showed that there was considerable bone loss under the gumline. Apparently that's quite rare for a young dog, but it was what it was. Now whenever I show her teeth it looks like an overbite even though she doesn't have that. Her breath was really bad so I knew she had to get a dental. Plus I could see how bad it was at the back of her mouth.
What I'm doing now is I find that every 2 or 3 days I give them each a raw bone. And I gotta be careful with Maezie's moustache of hair. It can easily get caught up in her mouth and she will chew it off or make it so bad that it needs to be cut. So I'm always making sure her moustache is either wrapped or banded (with the bands and hair pulled back so it's not near her mouth). I do believe the raw bones help with keeping their teeth clean.