As all owners of dogs should be aware, it is vitally important to help keep your pooch's teeth as healthy as possible in order to minimise the risk of gum disease, tooth decay, tartar build up and other nasties from developing. There are tooth pastes marketed at dogs but alot of pooches will not abide a brush rootling round their mouth and scrubbing at their gnashers; including my own usually angelic dog who put up such a protest that I'll admit I soon gave up on the idea and looked for other alternatives. She gets rawhide chews regularly and they seem to do a cracking job but when I saw these new treats marketed for being dental friendly and effective due to their innovative shape and design I decided to give them a go, Pedigree do a version but it was the Bakers variety that I tried out first.

The treats come in a range of sizes to suit different dogs, for instance the medium sticks are aimed at dogs weighing from 10kg-25kg; my own pooch is a German Shorthaired Pointer and is quite a petite girl for her breed so medium is usually what we opt for. The treats also come in different flavours, I have seen both chicken and beef options on the shelves; we've tried her with both and her own preference seems to be the beef, though she will happily chow down on either she seems to attack the beef with that bit more gusto. The dental sticks remind me slightly of jumbones as they have a crunchy hard outer layer and a softer meaty middle, the treats have long ridges in their shape and I suppose it is these that are designed to clean the teeth, acting with slight abrasion on the tartar when chewed. Each pack comes with 7 sticks and you can pick them up for the reasonable sum of £1.85 from Pets at Home which is where I do most of my shopping for the pets.

Whilst they are a good idea I've found that my girl can finish the whole thing in a matter of minutes; it takes her no time at all to gulp it down. Now she is a serial treat destroyer but I still expected better and they don't really act as the boredom breaker I'd hoped; I'm not sure that they even work on her teeth - I think that because she eats it so quickly it probably doesn't have time to even begin working on her teeth. For dogs that take their time I imagine that the dental sticks would fair better, my princess obviously thinks they're tasty by how fast she demolishes them but as for her teeth I can't say I've noticed much difference. For the fight against plaque I think I'll stick to rawhide in the future as that takes her a lot longer to chew and she can't get through it nearly as quickly.