Question:
More than once I heard experienced dog owners praise the benefits of feeding
raw chicken wings to dogs to clean their teeth. How does one introduce raw
meat to a dog that is fed dry kibble? Are there any risks of upsetting
their stomach? How many wings and how often per day/week for a healthy
cleaning? Does that mean daily kibble intake must be reduced?
Answer:
I do not see how raw bones could help teeth. They will crack the teeth!
The bones described above are soft bones. These are none weight bearing and
from very young chickens (I believe they are only 14 weeks old or somewhere
around there). Usually when a dog cracks a tooth it is from chewing on
large weight bearing bones, such as beef femurs. Those are called
recreational bones since they are not a part of the raw diet except for the
entertainment and satisfaction (from this type of chewing) of the dog. Dogs
could also crack a tooth on pork and lamb neck bones I suppose, which are a
part of the raw diet. There are risks with everything.
My dog is three and a half and has beautiful teeth with NO tarter, no
gum disease, no bad breath because he eats raw meat, vegs and bones.
Chicken backs and wings are the softest but even if you grind the
bones a dogs teeth will stay tarter free. The major reason for the
tarter on a dogs teeth is from too much calcium in the kibble. My dog
does great without bowls of processed cereal which is what you are
feeding when you use kibble.
Some dogs take a while to get use to raw food because it is a lot more
effort to eat than kibble. My vet told me about a couple of
researchers that are studying bloat and have not been able to find one
case in a raw feed dog--nothing to swell up in their stomachs!
Science Diet is the best. I feed it to my dog.
