Glad he’s doing better! I’ve never used tums, but as Susan pointed out a sluggish digestive system can be the breeding grounds for nasty breath as the food basically sits there and ferments. Hopefully you all can find some long term relief.
As Anon pointed out though, a home scale job isn’t the same as a professional cleaning if there are problems (it’s virtually impossible to get under the gum line, even on the worlds most patient dog). However, if there are no problems and the bones and an occasional scraping is doing the job and your vet is satisfied with how things are going, I say if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I was in a bind a few years back when one of my oldest dogs developed heart failure at a ripe age, and his teeth were in need of some help. The dogs vet(s) and I discussed it at length, and all were in agreement that a home scale job, done slowly (as to not bombard the dog’s bloodstream with icky crap, as some plaque DOES get swallowed) was the way to go for this dog, given his situation. The vet checked his teeth monthly. In about 3 months time, about 85% of the plaque was gone. (To loosen up some of the really bad stuff on the back teeth, we tried using Fragaria Vesca 6x daily to soften the plaque. By God, it worked.) He lived well beyond the vet and I’s expectations, and while he was on a few medications and heart supplements, we feel that cleaning his teeth up helped extend his life expectancy, too.
So now, we brush teeth, as I learned the hard way that prevention makes more sense than a cure. Any dogs with poor bites, poor root structure, or problem teeth in general get brushed 4-5 times a week. The dogs with good bites and no problems are once a week or so. Everyone gets recreational bones.
If this doesn’t apply to you, be grateful as it’s a difficult situation to be in when your dog’s teeth aren’t in the best shape, but health problems put them as a high risk case for being put under to get those teeth taken care of, yet NOT having the teeth cleaned creates the risk of worsening the organ failure. Hopefully this helps someone who’s reading!
