Doggo Debunk: Dental Hygiene

When visiting the local pet store, you may feel overwhelmed when selecting health and wellness products for your doggo…you may even be wondering, “Doe this really work?” Well doggo lover, trust us when we say you’re not alone.

We’ve decided to dig deeper into common doggo health products in our latest blog series, Doggo Debunk! Today, we’ll be focusing on the most common dental hygiene product: the dental chew.

The Journal of Veterinary Dentistry recently came out with a study on dental chews and how well they actually work to clean your doggos teeth (2013). 

To test this, they compared two groups of doggos; one group on a diet of commercial dry dog food plus a dental chew and one group on a commercial dry dog food diet without a dental chew. 

The dental chews used were very generic…you know, those classic retail green ones with the toothbrushes? The study kept it general to ensure that the data collected was as accurate as it could be across all dental chew brands.

At the end of the study, Dr. Quest, the conductor of the study, reported that the group of doggos that had used the dental chews had a ”statistically significant reduction in plaque and calculus accumulation and oral malodor, while improving gingival indices” (2013). WOW. That is a mouthful! What does that even mean??

In other words, every area that was tested to determine mouth cleanliness after the 28 days was found to have successfully improved oral health in the group of doggos that had taken the dental chews!

Do we need to debunk dental chews? HECK NO! This study proves that they really do work; we’d highly recommend you implement a dental chew into your doggos diet!