Gun dogs: My gun dog has plaque building up on his teeth!

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My gun dog has plaque building up on his teeth!

Tartar-free teeth; before and after pictures of a brush up and polish at the vets.

By Gun dogs

Wednesday, 26 October 2011

My gun dog has that yellow plaque building up on his teeth - is the product PlaqueOff (that you can only get from the vets) any good and does it work?

GUN DOG VET
Neil McIntosh
PlaqueOff is one of a large number of products with a huge amount of anecdotal evidence supporting claims of reducing plaque.

But you have to be careful here.

Plaque is a soft mixture of bacteria and food particles (stuff you could brush off, if you could be bothered).

PlaqueOff, which is a heady mixture of iodine rich seaweed in granular form, is supposed to reduce the ability of plaque to stick to the teeth.

I am not at all sure how.

(Okay, okay, it is supposed to be absorbed into the bloodstream, then excreted back out through saliva onto the teeth where it disrupts the biofilm layer).

Many people, however, say it works and it is, contrary to your belief, widely available and not just at your vet (at a huge range of prices).

It will not (and does not claim to) remove the hard, smelly tartar that is formed when plaque is mineralised.

I am afraid only professional scaling will achieve this.

There are many clinically proven products on the market – and yes, you’ve guessed, your friendly vet will advise you - but it wouldn’t cost much to buy some PlaqueOff and see.

Alternatively, brush until you’re completely plaqued off!