Awful breath

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CDN_Cocker
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Awful breath

Post by CDN_Cocker » Sat Feb 10, 2018 5:28 pm

My cocker has always had an issue with tartar build up. Even as a pup he had a tendency to have a lot of build up. Are there any good supplements or treats out there that combat that or specifically bad breath? It is literally unbearable to be in the same room in the evenings with him while he's chewing his bone. His breath is enough to kill a horse. There must be something I can feed him or add to his water to kill that before it kills us. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Never owned a dog that smells that bad.
Cass
"If you train a young dog for momentum, precision will arrive. If you train for precision, demanding perfection, momentum will depart." - Rex Carr

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Re: Awful breath

Post by shags » Sat Feb 10, 2018 6:09 pm

Your best bet would be to see a vet. Really bad teeth need professional attention and a good cleaning and maybe extractions; then you might be able to do maintenance work yourself. You don’t mention your dog’s age or general health, but kidney disease can cause unbelievably bad breath.

Once you have the teeth cleaned up, ask the vet to show you how to scale them yourself. Scalers are around 10 bucks or less on Amazon. Then look into changing your dog’s diet. Sometimes the dog’s individual chemistry doesn’t combine well with their kibble, and tartar builds up faster. My dogs get dirty teeth on one popular product, but are much better on another.

Dirty mouths and gum disease can have bad effects on your dog’s heart and kidneys. For his sake and yours, see your vet.

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CDN_Cocker
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Re: Awful breath

Post by CDN_Cocker » Sat Feb 10, 2018 6:19 pm

The vet just says he has lots of tartar and to keep brushing but it doesn't seem to help. He's only 5 years old.
Cass
"If you train a young dog for momentum, precision will arrive. If you train for precision, demanding perfection, momentum will depart." - Rex Carr

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Re: Awful breath

Post by shags » Sat Feb 10, 2018 6:30 pm

Brushing won’t remove tartar/calculus.

Ask the vet to show you how to scrape the teeth. YouTube has instructional videos also, and you can purchase a scaler online.

Or change vets. That brushing advice seems crazy; it helps on clean teeth or plaque ( soft smelly biofilm) but not tartar.

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Awful breath

Post by MGIII » Sat Feb 10, 2018 6:53 pm

Try Poden Plaque off

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Re: Awful breath

Post by Steve007 » Sat Feb 10, 2018 9:36 pm

This is all absolutely true, and you should also ask or find a vet that does dentals (actually, his staff will). Shags gave you good advice; your vet didn't. However, while you're doing this, you should look into chlorophyll-based dog chews. Tablets also available. They work, but obviously you need to clean up his teeth as stated by others. Here's one. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LV4GSY6/re ... rd_w=dFzTt

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Re: Awful breath

Post by polmaise » Sun Feb 11, 2018 3:10 am

CDN_Cocker wrote:The vet just says he has lots of tartar and to keep brushing but it doesn't seem to help. He's only 5 years old.
Halitosis is a Red Flag .

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Re: Awful breath

Post by Timewise65 » Sun Feb 11, 2018 9:54 am

I agree with everyone about your vet, their response was not correct...

But, getting a vet to clean you dogs teeth is not cheep! They usually have to knock the dog out to do it properly. If your dog chews on bones, antlers, or hard Nyla-bones it is likely they have a broken or cracked tooth. A good vet will take care of this while cleaning the teeth....

But bottom line you need to have a vet clean the teeth so you can start over keeping them clean again....

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Re: Awful breath

Post by Cicada » Mon Feb 12, 2018 12:55 pm

Deer antlers do an amazing job on tartar but I still do a bit of cleaning my self with tools I got from my dentist.

Grant

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Re: Awful breath

Post by JONOV » Mon Feb 12, 2018 3:26 pm

Call around to some groomers...a neighbor had a pitbull, 8 or 9, same deal with bad teeth and bad breath. The groomer used some enzyme based paste. It really seemed to help, the teeth were notably whiter, etc...

Are you giving your dog real bones? Meaning a beef knee, a rib, femur? My dog gets those and they really seem to help, so much so that we noticed his teeth were very yellow after a month with a trainer...a couple bones cleared it up.

Unfortunately I think some of it is genetic, and there might be only so much you can do.

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Re: Awful breath

Post by shags » Mon Feb 12, 2018 3:50 pm

Be wary of hard bones, like femurs. We used to buy them labeled as marrow bones or soup bones, until one morning I found that I had two dogs with slab fractures of molars, with root pulp showing. It cost around $1500 to have those teeth extracted. Leaving them alone was not an option because of the damage.

We had another bad experience with rawhides. One evening The Old Ball and Chain heard a dog making weird sounds, got up to find the dog choking and turning blue. The rawhide was stuck in his windpipe and was it difficult to remove because it was soft and slick. But TOB&C was able to extract it and the dog was OK. Would not have been a good outcome if he hadn’t paid attention. We also had an episode when a dog almost choked on a dental chew from Costco, but that time the dog coughed it up himself.

No more chewies around here. The dogs get a large hard dog biscuit every day instead, and regular scaling.

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Re: Awful breath

Post by MonsterDad » Tue Feb 13, 2018 8:17 am

Get a professional cleaning and then put the dog on a high protein, high fat food. Plaque (and then tartar) can only form in the mouth when bacteria has carbohydrates to feed on. So to the extent you limit carbohydrates especially rice and corn, you should see improvement.

The extreme approach would be to feed a raw diet with ZERO carbohydrates.

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Re: Awful breath

Post by Timewise65 » Thu Feb 15, 2018 11:03 am

Cicada wrote:Deer antlers do an amazing job on tartar but I still do a bit of cleaning my self with tools I got from my dentist.

Grant
I thought the same thing until one of my dogs had a puffed up face caused by a broken tooth from chewing on Deer antlers! That cost us to have the tooth extracted and antibiotics to clear the infection. My vet tells us, no bones, no Nyla-bones, no animal horns, etc. Eventually, dogs will break or crack teeth on these things....

I know many ignore this, but sooner or later...crack!

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Re: Awful breath

Post by isonychia » Thu Feb 15, 2018 5:18 pm

I bought in to the whole raw hides are bad thing, then my dog got a heart murmur, possibly from terrible teeth and subsequent valve infection that cleared up, who knows, he is young though. Terrible breath as well, actually the murmur was diagnosed when I took him in for a dental cleaning.

Skipped the cleaning for the risk of anesthesia is now not worth it, began feeding buffalo raw hides. Only 5 months in and his teeth are AMAZING, breath is much much better as well.

Hype, where would we be without it. "Rawhides are bad, here take an antler or this cooked bone your dog can break a tooth on."

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Re: Awful breath

Post by Cicada » Sat Feb 17, 2018 10:28 am

Timewise65 wrote:
Cicada wrote:Deer antlers do an amazing job on tartar but I still do a bit of cleaning my self with tools I got from my dentist.

Grant
I thought the same thing until one of my dogs had a puffed up face caused by a broken tooth from chewing on Deer antlers! That cost us to have the tooth extracted and antibiotics to clear the infection. My vet tells us, no bones, no Nyla-bones, no animal horns, etc. Eventually, dogs will break or crack teeth on these things....

I know many ignore this, but sooner or later...crack!
No doubt it can happen I try to get the nice thick ones they seem to like chewing the ends to get to the centre. I will keep an eye on them.

Thanks
Grant

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Re: Awful breath

Post by Steve007 » Wed Feb 28, 2018 6:36 pm

So what did CDN_Cocker do to solve his awful problem? We certainly have some good answers here.

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Re: Awful breath

Post by CDN_Cocker » Tue Mar 06, 2018 8:31 am

Actually ended up buying some good rawhide. His breath is much better.
Cass
"If you train a young dog for momentum, precision will arrive. If you train for precision, demanding perfection, momentum will depart." - Rex Carr

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Re: Awful breath

Post by birdshot » Wed Mar 14, 2018 8:40 pm

I was playing, I spy, with my 4 yoa grandson, as we drove down the road. A big caution sign was coming up so i spied something yellow. His first guess was, "your teeth". Wondering if i should get some rawhide bones? That embarrassing anecdote aside, My cocker has always had brown stained teeth since he was a puppy. I attributed the staining to eating cat poop and had tried about everything but mouth wash. Let me know if you see a real improvement. thanks.

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Re: Awful breath

Post by ezzy333 » Thu Mar 15, 2018 5:57 am

I think staining is more often caused by fever when young before the teeth emerged
http://www.perfectpedigrees.com/4genview.php?id=144
http://www.perfectpedigrees.com/4genview.php?id=207

It's not how many breaths you have taken but how many times it has been taken away!

Has anyone noticed common sense isn't very common anymore.

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Re: Awful breath

Post by Steve007 » Thu Mar 15, 2018 9:49 am

ezzy333 wrote:I think staining is more often caused by fever when young before the teeth emerged
in the old old days, it was a good sign, as it meant the dog had survived distemper and this was immune to it. Pre-vaccine, 50% of all dogs died of distemper or were permanently marred before one year of age.

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Re: Awful breath

Post by ezzy333 » Thu Mar 15, 2018 11:27 am

Steve007 wrote:
ezzy333 wrote:I think staining is more often caused by fever when young before the teeth emerged
in the old old days, it was a good sign, as it meant the dog had survived distemper and this was immune to it. Pre-vaccine, 50% of all dogs died of distemper or were permanently marred before one year of age.
You got it.
http://www.perfectpedigrees.com/4genview.php?id=144
http://www.perfectpedigrees.com/4genview.php?id=207

It's not how many breaths you have taken but how many times it has been taken away!

Has anyone noticed common sense isn't very common anymore.

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Re: Awful breath

Post by Fozzie's Mom » Thu Mar 15, 2018 12:53 pm

ezzy333 wrote:
Steve007 wrote:
ezzy333 wrote:I think staining is more often caused by fever when young before the teeth emerged
in the old old days, it was a good sign, as it meant the dog had survived distemper and this was immune to it. Pre-vaccine, 50% of all dogs died of distemper or were permanently marred before one year of age.
You got it.
That, or certain antibiotics can stain teeth as the enamel is forming if given to young dogs.

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Re: Awful breath

Post by polmaise » Thu Mar 15, 2018 5:05 pm

CDN_Cocker wrote:My cocker has always had an issue with tartar build up. Even as a pup he had a tendency to have a lot of build up. Are there any good supplements or treats out there that combat that or specifically bad breath? It is literally unbearable to be in the same room in the evenings with him while he's chewing his bone. His breath is enough to kill a horse. There must be something I can feed him or add to his water to kill that before it kills us. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Never owned a dog that smells that bad.
Kennels are my option ,they can have their own breath.
A picture of the tartar build up before the use of rawhide would be good against the picture after giving rawhide. The smell, well...that's something else that can be masked . Is t still chewing it's bone btw as well as the rawhide ? ..Or is that discarded .

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