Try These DIY Home Remedies to Fight Bad Doggie Breath

Most dogs will show their love by jumping up to kiss and slobber over you – let’s face it, we love it!

However, there is no joy when your dog has bad breath, which can occur due to what they eat, but can also occur if your dog has an illness, or his mouth is in bad dental condition. Minty flavored chews and other chews are available both to keep your dogs’ gums in good condition and also to make their breath more ‘sweet smelling’, so you can enjoy that wet kiss!

But look at home – there are many different ways you can keep your dogs’ breath smelling of roses (not literally) but utilizing things that you would generally have in store cupboards or the fridge, or even growing wild in your garden.

Prevention First – Cure Second

Let’s look at the ways you can at least help the prevention of smelly breath.

What are you feeding him or her?

You can almost do an ‘elimination test’ – remember what you are feeding Fido or Fifi for their last meal, and see how odorous their breath is. If there is no odor, then it is likely that that meal or food content is not affecting them. Gradually check everything you feed them, and sure thing, 4 hours after eating, you will be able to tell whether it doesn’t agree with your dog in some way.

Canned meat or some wet foods can cause smelly breath, so be aware of that straight away. Also, cooked meat (you decided to give them leftovers from your roast dinner) will inevitably clog between the teeth – once there, it will rot and become evil-smelling. If you insist on feeding your dog leftovers, you must clean their teeth regularly, which we all know can be a trial. Failure to regularly clean teeth will cause the build-up of ‘doggy tartar’ which causes gum disease and bad teeth – result is breath that could knock you over from a yard away!

How clean is their water?

Make sure that the water in your dogs’ bowl is fresh and clean, and that the bowl is also cleaned every day. Bacteria builds up in dirty water and bowls, which will also cause foul breath. If you cannot remove food particles from your pets’ teeth, then it is a trip to your trusted veterinarian for a good scale and polish! Unfortunately, in terms of water, there is not much you can do when they insist on hurtling full blast into the nearest dirty puddle and drinking it. Try to distract your dog away from standing water as soon as you can, and on arrival home, encourage him to drink a nice clean bowl of it.

Switch to Raw Food!

Scientific studies show that a raw food diet will benefit your dogs’ dental health and bad breath – chewing away on ‘not so tender’ meat will result in better blood flow and increased saliva, which both assist in helping your dog to keep his mouth clean.
Other serious illnesses and infections can occur if bad dental hygiene is not corrected. Internal organs such as heart, liver and kidneys can be affected quite alarmingly due to gum infection and diseased teeth.

 

Tips for Homemade Bad Breath Remedies

Garlic

Whilst garlic can make the human breath pretty stinky, for some reason, it has the reverse effect on puppy breath pong. All dogs should benefit from a limited amount of garlic (and they seem to love it too). It is easy to disguise it in food, crush it, chop it or whatever you want and mix it up with the meal.

Gauge how much you give your dog by its weight – small dogs should only have about ½ a clove, but you can gradually increase this depending on their size. A medium sized dog can have a whole clove, whereas the bigger dogs can have 2 to 3 cloves. Try making your own dog treats, and mince up some garlic and add to it – doggie will enjoy it and you will get the benefit of a not-so-smelly hound.

Herbs

Herbs are excellent for bad breath, and again you can chop some up in food, or add it to treats. Most garden herbs such as parsley, mint, rosemary, sage, and even cilantro will take away the pong.

If you can’t pick it at home, see if you friends have any or do a supermarket sweep at the end of the day and pick up some herby bargains. It’s well worth the effort.

Bones

Most dogs love bones, and can happily wile away the time lying on the mat chewing away until the bone is a mere ‘skeleton of itself’! You must be careful though on exactly what bone you give them. Some veterinarians recommend you to never give dogs ‘natural’ bones at all, particularly not cooked ones.

So it is best to give your dog bones that will not do any internal damage by splintering inside their stomachs. Minty bones, or the chewy dental bones that are available are probably best, rather than risk anything else.

More tips for sweet-smelling dog breath

There are a lot of things to do to help your dog’s kissability. Here are some final tips.

• Try to clean teeth at least once a day, and start at an early age so they can get used to it.
• When cleaning, check your dogs’ mouth not just for plaque or bad teeth, but also for any untoward growths – these can certainly cause bad breath.
• Not mentioned before – SHUT THE TOILET LID! Dogs love licking toilets!
• Watch and monitor food intake – you can try raw food, but introduce it gradually, not switch to it immediately.
• Try a breath spray, such as Trudog’s Spray Me, with its refreshing aroma. If your dog is difficult to feed, fussy and thinks that teeth cleaning is a torture for being a naughty dog, it’s a much faster option and probably more pleasant for them.

Good luck, and happy, sweet-smelling doggie kisses!