bad breath!

[Pembroke_Corgi]

Does anyone know of any good products to freshen dogs' breath? My corgi, Marta has terrible :eek: breath...
Is there any kind of doggie toothpaste that is especially good for this? She has somewhat of a sensitive tummy so I don't like to give her too many bones or edible bones (like greenies) to except on rare occasions. Any suggestions? Thanks!

[wolfsoul]

Try charcoal biscuits. :) Alot of times, the smell is just coming from the stomach. Charcoal absorbs the acids and the smell. You can also try parsley. It works really great! :) Darford sells biscuits that contain charcoal, peppermint, parsley, and chlorophyll, which are all great for the breath. You can get them at pretty much any pet supply store or Wal-mart. My friend's dog has a sensitive belly and she does fine with these. :)

Raw bones are great too. They clean the teeth SO well. Have you tried these to see if they are okay for her tummy?

[LoudLou]

C.E.T. Toothpaste (We get ours from our vet) is what we use on LOUD Louie's pearly whites. Also maybe a dental check-up is in order?

[lvpets2002]

:) Hey have you tried Greenies yet? I give them to my cats & dogs & they love them..

[areias]

You can go into any petstore and pick up some doggie toothpaste. It dosen't take too long to get them used to the teeth brushing. Start out with your fingers first with the toothpaste and slowly build up to using the toothbrush.

There are fresh breath biscuits, if you're interested in trying. Pedigree has a line of Breath Buster Biscuits...it has parsley and eucalyptus in it so, like wolfsoul said, you could try those.

How old is Marta? I second LoudLou that you may need to get her teeth looked at..maybe one is rotted. You could also have the vet do the initial dental work, with scraping and all that, and then start on a routine of teeth brushing. Hope that helps! :D

[Pembroke_Corgi]

Thanks to everyone, I'm going to try giving her some charcoal biscuits, and regularly brushing her teeth! I've tried dog toothpaste on the dogs before, both my dogs like the flavor, but I've just been lazy with it.
She doesn't have any rotted teeth, as we often look in her mouth (we have since she was a puppy to get her used to being handled by people and the vet), but does anyone know how often dogs should have their teeth professionally cleaned? Marta is almost 3, and she has never had her teeth cleaned by the vet- I just feed her dry food and give her greenies once and a while.
Does anyone know if a professional teeth cleaning can be done without anesthesia? I've had to take my cat in the past for a cleaning, and she had to be put under, but Marta is very good at the vet's office and tolerant of all kinds of handling. Thanks for the advice!

[Tollers-n-Dobes]

...does anyone know how often dogs should have their teeth professionally cleaned?

....Does anyone know if a professional teeth cleaning can be done without anesthesia?...

First question: With regular brushing and care of your dogs teeth, they should never have to be cleaned professionally in most cases :). Of course, there are probably exceptions...

Second question: Yes, it can be done without the use of anesthetic depending on how bad the teeth are and how tolerant the dog is. If you're considering getting your dog's teeth cleaned by a vet and would rather not use anesthetic, you could probably talk to your vet about that.

So far everyone has given you some great advice but I wanted to add, you can use a dental pick on pets (I'm not sure what it's called exactly...) like dentists use on humans to get the plaque and stuff off. I usually do that every week or two with my 4 dogs aswell as regular brushing and giving them raw bones and greenies...

[wolfsoul]

We clean Visa's teeth ourselves. :) If you go to any automotive shop, you should be able to find picks (they look alot like the kind dentists use on our teeth). They are great for scraping plaque off the teeth. Infact, we just cleaned Visa's teeth today. They are sparkly white now! :)