Meat breath?

Kaybie's Mom · #1 09-26-2008, 07:27 AM

Ok, I have a weird question.....not sure if anyone will know the answer. Kaybie and Bruno have no smell to their breath at all. But Atreyu's breath is awful. It literally smells like raw meat all the time. I've checked his teeth and they are sparkly white and clean. He crunches bones and chews and tears meat with no problems. All the dogs eat the same variety of meats, i.e. chicken, turkey, beef, pork, venison, etc (except Bruno who is just starting to try out new meats slowly). Does anyone have any idea as to why Atreyu's breath would smell so bad but the other dogs have no smell to their breath at all? I'm kind of stumped.

BetsyB · #2 09-26-2008, 08:37 AM

Nikki, I have the same issue with Angus. Mackensie never has stinky breath, and Angus' breath always smells like he has just eaten fish. (Which he only gets once a week or so). I had attributed it to us just adopting Angus in May and starting raw then, and him having yucky teeth due to his previous life... but I guess if Atreyu has it too and has been raw-fed his whole life, that may not be the case? Angus' teeth were pretty yucky looking when we first adopted him, but within a month on raw, they were all clean and sparkly white except for one molar in the back that doesn't seem to get cleaned as well. It's better, just not perfect... Now I'm thinking that maybe it's the same thing with dogs as it is with people in regards to breath. Some people just seem to have bad breath no matter what, so perhaps some dogs do too?

daisykaye · #3 09-26-2008, 08:39 PM

I had a problem with Brody's breath not to long ago. It was awful. I would look at his teeth and couldn't find any problems. They were pretty and white.

Brody will not eat his heart guard medication, so I have to push it down his throat. When I grabbed his upper gums to open his mouth, I felt something. On closer inspection I saw that he had a gum overgrowth. When the vet removed it he said it had food impacted up under it and it was very infected.

These growths are pretty hard to see. I bet my DH and I looked in Brody's mouth a hundred times and never saw it. So do a close inspection of the gum line and see if this could be the problem.