Do you think good teeth are genetic??

[lavendersun]

Lavenderdog is 11 and in rude health but her teeth are not fab and her breath smells, not always but sometimes.

I do clean them, aim for every other day, they look clean but a few of them look bad from the inside out. Not sure if that makes sense but they are discoloured from within.

She has big bones from the butcher (one keeps her going for a week they are so big) and the seaweed stuff that I can't remember the name of on her breakfast.

She did go to the vet recently who asked if she was OK eating (which she is).

Anything else I can do for her do you think or are deteriorating teeth inevitable?

[Shriek]

same as us we get a certain amount of our teeth and bone 'health' from genetics, but the rest comes from our diet and with bones, exercise.

Really surprised that even though has a bone each week you have to clean teeth every other day!

Did the vet say teeth needing cleaning?

If this has been a fairly recent thing, it might be worth just getting a blood test done to rule out any blood/bone disorders, but if the vet was concerned i would have thought they'd have mentioned this already.

You could always just ask for one to rule anything else out.

What breed? as they all age so differently and could just be that

[lavendersun]

Labrador - Shriek, I started noticing smelly breath a couple of months ago and when I had the vet look she asked if she had any trouble eating which she doesn't.

I don't think that her teeth are full of tartar, some of them look brown from within.

Her teeth have been discoloured for a year or two not all of them but some of them.

All her siblings/parents are healthy, parents now 14. I could ask her breeder I suppose, we write to each other once a year.

She is very fit and healthy otherwise, I just wondered if I should be doing anything else for her.

[Shriek]

it would be an obvious link that bad teeth mean bad breath,and then stomach, but if eating good and stools not changed, it seems odd if she's so healthy otherwise. She wouldn't neceesarily follow her parents of course, but i think it would be worth, personally, just getting the vet to do a routine blood test to check for any anomalies in there.

Little discomfort, low cost and might put your mind at rest?