Zippy eats raw pretty regularly. He gets a nice variety of meaty meat and organ, but I would say the majority of his bone content comes from chicken and occasionally rabbit. The chicken bones keep his back teeth nice, but not his canines or the teeth right behind them. He also chews on bullysticks alot, but they don't seem to make much difference. Does anyone have any recommendations for what might help scale those front teeth without causing tooth damage? btw Zippy is an 18lb Manchester
Best raw meal for teeth cleaning?
- Thread starter Kmh1
- Start date
M
It really depends on the individual dog and how they chew. What works best with Tempie is a turkey neck. Those may be a bit big for your guy, but sometimes the hen necks can be pretty small. Raja chews on everything so thoroughly, she's not really a problem. Sometimes, I give them a stripped lamb pelvis that cleans their teeth pretty nicely, but that's not a meal. It's just recreation.
Dogs don't really use thier canine teeth to chew with. In the wild, the main use for canine teeth are to kill their prey. Without that ability, they die in the wild so they are pretty protective of those teeth. They don't use them to crunch bones because of the danger of breaking.
Canine teeth are cleaned by the dog pulling off big chunks of meat off the bone. The teeth slide through the meat, cleaning them. Feeding large pieces of meat like a pork roast is helpful for cleaning the front teeth.
Canine teeth are cleaned by the dog pulling off big chunks of meat off the bone. The teeth slide through the meat, cleaning them. Feeding large pieces of meat like a pork roast is helpful for cleaning the front teeth.
My dogs both have pretty clean teeth all of the time from eating raw, but the BEST teeth cleaner is a meaty knuckle bone. It's the knee of a cow. Ripping and tearing at the meat and cartilege cleans alllll of their teeth, even canines. I feed a couple a month and their teeth are perfect! 
Just be very careful and always supervise your dog... take them away once your dogs reach the boney center, as the bone is very hard and shouldn't be eaten.
Just be very careful and always supervise your dog... take them away once your dogs reach the boney center, as the bone is very hard and shouldn't be eaten.
yes be very careful of recreational (non-edible) bones, if the dog tries to chew the actual bone he could break his teeth.
But I agree that a big enough hunk of meat for the dog to have to rip and pull off pieces would help those front teeth. It may also be somewhat easy to take a tooth brush to the front teeth for extra help.
But I agree that a big enough hunk of meat for the dog to have to rip and pull off pieces would help those front teeth. It may also be somewhat easy to take a tooth brush to the front teeth for extra help.