Avoiding a Dental

Is there a way to clean your dog's teeth without the expense of a dental with anesthesia?

12 year old Lexa's clean teeth, just from being raw fed for her entire life.

In spite of feeding our dogs a 100% raw diet, lots of Yak Chews, and even some rawhide, a few of our dogs occasionally get some tartar buildup. This is, most likely, caused by the biscuits we still give them, and some level of genetic propensity. We also have one dog who was fed kibble in his early life (a return to us when his owner passed away) and another who has a molar mal-positioned.

We all know how effective Leba lll is - this is the tiny bottle of spray that is easy to administer to many dogs, but, it is expensive and we have a couple dogs, like Dru and Chloe, who will not tolerate it, so we needed to find another solution.

PetLab Co. makes a powder called ProBright that we have used on Chloe. We are on the second jar, and the good news is that it is working on the molars. This little jar is also pricey.

Cut into individual ribs, each dog got one to enjoy.

Recently we read an article by Dr. Conor Brady "How to Safely Feed a Dog Bones" , which sounded perfectly reasonable, then met with Paul, our butcher who provides meats for Napa Fresh. He supplied us with a rack of beef ribs, big, full of meat, and very beautiful (if you're a dog!) for us to try.

We gave one to Pav, Dru, & Kiki, all of whom had a bit of tartar build up on the molars. After giving them a second one the following day, their teeth were clean! And they LOVED chewing on the ribs. Of course we monitored them periodically while they were chewing, very happily I might add. They used their chewing muscles and their molars as they were meant to be used. It was beautiful to watch.

Once clean, we took them away.

Just to be safe, once the dogs took a break from chewing, once the ribs were clean, we took them away, even though they are indeed soft enough for them to chew, swallow, and digest according to Dr. Brady. If we had smaller dogs, we would have let them keep these ribs a few more days to enjoy.

The one thing we forgot to do is take before and after photos.

At this point, we are now experimenting with two other dogs who have some tartar, especially Leah, who comes from another bloodline and seems more pre-disposed to tartar. This time we have taken photos and will post them soon.

We have also made arrangements with Paul at Bourbeau's Market in Leominster to supply us with more beautiful ribs for not only our dogs, but yours! The ribs are big enough for most dogs to enjoy, even some small and medium size dogs - bigger is definitely safer. As with any chew, if you monitor your dog's chewing, they can do what dogs need to do for clean teeth, CHEW! It's what their teeth and jaws were meant to do, and they thoroughly enjoy it!

They'll be in our store very soon.