bad breath!

[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!