Is doggie toothpaste bad for dogs?

We recently started brushing Beni's teeth every day in an effort to try and reduce some of the huge buildups of plaque on his teeth and prevent his having a dental cleaning. Our vet suggested we try brushing every day for 6 months and seeing if there is improvement. His teeth do look a lot better after the brushing, but I'm wondering whether there is some long term consequence of giving him that much toothpaste. We use about 4 pea sized dabs each time.

Anyone have any knowledge of how that stuff works and what the side effects are? We use Petrodex, poultry flavor.

Thanks in advance!
Teresa

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Permalink Reply by Edison on July 1, 2011 at 11:57am

If you're skeptical about raw bones (they make Edison vomit yellow bile for days afterwards, unfortunately) you can also give him rawhide chews on a regular basis. They last longer than bully sticks and work very nicely to keep the dog both entertained and dentally healthy. :)

-Alice

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Permalink Reply by Sam, Gregg & Poopdeck on July 1, 2011 at 12:43pm

The problem with that is Poopdeck chews them down to about 2", then swallows the rest whole. He vomited once...rest rest just go down the hole. It scares me because one day it may just choke him to death!

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Permalink Reply by Melissa and Franklin! on July 1, 2011 at 1:25pm

I always make sure to give Franklin a whole rawhide before I leave. He takes a while to chew through them so I know there will be at least half or 1/4 of a rawhide left when I get home. Then I can take it away and just give it to him when I'm there to watch. He can't have bullysticks when I am gone because he will chomp those down and do the same thing, end up with about 2" and try to swallow it. A large braided bullystick lasts much longer than the straight ones so you may get away with giving one of those. I've also heard people rave about antlers. Never tried them myself though as I'm pretty sure Franklin would have no interest in them bc doesn't seem like they'd taste like much.

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Permalink Reply by Beni on July 1, 2011 at 4:46pm

yeah, beni swallows entire rawhides. our vet said that rawhides are terrible for dogs and just get lodged in the digestive system if they aren't chewed properly, so we don't buy those anymore.

We did get an elk antler and beni loved it. The person we bought it from said that elk antlers are like the "filet mignon" of the antler world. I haven't verified this myself.

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Permalink Reply by Alex on July 4, 2011 at 2:36am

Dee Dee always had some teeth issues. When she was younger, she actually had to have root canal. The tooth chipped from chewing on Nylabone and/or ice cubes, and got infected. She couldn't eat bones or rawhide because those gave her diarrhea. So, all I could do was to brush her teeth. Now we slowed down to brushing every other day, and her teeth are fine. We've been brushing her teeth with dog tooth paste for 10 years, and have not had any issues. I think I can say that tooth paste for dogs are just fine. I personally like the ones with vanilla flavor than chicken/turkey. They just smell better while I'm brushing, and her breath seems better with it too!