Maybe switching back to kibble?

[bayleighmom]

I just posted in the health forum about Bayleigh's nasty mouth. Most everything I've read mentions staying away from soft food. That's all she gets since I homecook. She will not chew on a raw bone but prefers to hide it. I tried raw very briefly but she didn't care for it and I had a hard time with the raw meat!

So now I am wondering if I should switch back to kibble. I've been on dogfoodanalysis.com this morning and have narrowed it down to 3 6 star foods that are available at my feed store.

All are grainless. Wellness Core, Solid Gold Barking at the Moon and Innova EVO Red Meat. I am leaning towards SGBATM or Innova EVO Red Meat. Any suggestions?

 

[jmackie]

Many of your posts under the homecooking thread really inspired me to make the change to homecooking. My 9.5 yr old boy does not seem to be dealing well with the changes (extremely loose/liquid stool and horrible gas) and with other undetermined health problems that we are trying to get resolved, I think that I too will be switching back to kibble. Unfortunately, the one that he did do well on was Canidae but after reading the posts re: the new formula, it looks like I will be on the hunt for a new one also. There is one that someone recently told me about called Performatrin (not sure if it's only available in Canada though) - i think I will be looking into that. Good Luck to you, hopefully it'll be a smooth and easy transition.

 

[Kaybie's Mom]

Really bummed to hear that you are giving up on raw so quickly. I truly think Bayleigh will get it if you give her time. I think one common misperception about the raw diet is that only bones are what clean teeth.....in fact, that's not entirely true. Sure, bones obviously help, but another thing that cleans teeth is the ripping and tearing of meat as it slides over and through their teeth, it acts as a toothbrush and cleans them at the same time. So even if you crush or grind bones, but still give her hunks of meat to rip apart, I think she'd get similar benefits. I know one thing for sure is that most dogs barely even chew kibble and it does nothing to clean teeth so I doubt things will get any better.....they may possibly even get worse on kibble. Just some food for thought. Also, as far as you having a hard time with the raw meat.......trust me, I understand that one. I was one that couldn't even cook dinner for myself because seeing the meat before it was cooked disgusted me.....but I promise that you do get past that.......I now handle meat with my bare hands and it doesn't bother me at all. I remember laughing the first time I cut up a venison roast and asked my boyfriend if he wanted some Bambi....LOL.....trust me, I never thought I'd ever get to that point!

Edited to add:
I just read your teeth brushing thread.......if she's bleeding and such, I would bet something is going on in her mouth and the sudden bad breath is also a signal.....I bet that's why she's not wanting to eat the bones......something is probably painful.

If you are set on going back to kibble, I think any of those you mentioned are good foods but I tried Kaybie on the Evo RM a while back and she LOVED the food, BUT she had continuous gooey poop......it just never got better.....tried all sorts of things, but it was awful so I had to take her off that food. She was on SGBATM for a little while and did ok on it but then I brought Atreyu home and we switched to raw.

 

[BetsyB]

Ditto what Kaybie's mom said. Please hang in there and give RAW a good chance. Kibble has absolutely nothing to clean teeth. The bad breath, blood, and sores you mention in your other post about toothbrushing are most likely the reason why she is having a hard time with raw and won't chew any bones.
Hoping the vet can give you some answers and help to heal her sores...

 

[gmacleod]

Not because of teeth or breath problems Kibble will not do a thing for helping to clean her teeth.

For tartar to be scraped off teeth, the dog needs to be chewing right through hard, non-brittle items. Kibble is useless in this regard, because it shatters with little pressure (not to mention that most dogs don't chew it in the first place). To put things in perspective a little bit - probably at least 80% of dogs in North America are fed a kibble diet. And 80% of dogs in North America have dental diseases by age 3 (per http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=0&cat=1275&articleid=2056). So we can pretty well scratch kibble as being of any use at all in teeth cleaning.

There simply is no substitute for brushing your dog's teeth. Any more than there is a subsitute for brushing your own (I'm sure you wouldn't choose a eating a biscuit as alternative to your toothbrush - but that's about the equivalent of expecting kibble to do the job).

If that really is just out of the question, the nearest alternative would be giving her raw bones to chew on - the sort of semi-soft flexible ones that she can chew right through (and continuing to brush her incisors, since she won't be using those for chewing - but that's pretty easy). Next best to that - if she's keen on that sort of thing - would be the sorts of kong toys with ribs that you can fill with doggy toothpaste, that she can get at least some mild scraping from. But if she just won't chew on these - due to tooth sensitivity or just preference - then it really really does have to be daily toothbrushing to keep things in order.