# Bad breath?



## PoodlePowerBC (Feb 25, 2011)

My 15 year old terrier has horrible breath, we have an appointment to get teeth pulled in a few weeks. My nearly 3 year old standard has bright white teeth and no smelly breath. I would be curious to know why your 2 year old has smelly breath as well.


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

It would be really odd for a 2 year old to have a tooth problem, but still, I would have his teeth checked - he could have cracked a tooth, and the tooth is infected. 98% of the time infection is the cause of bad breath...

Teaka, although an 11y/o Toy, had/has the most amazing clean healthy teeth and gums that you could imagine - Vet never recommended cleaning,but joked that we should take a sample of her saliva and try to bottle it, but about the same time that she developed bad breath, she also began to jump at times when she was eating, so I brought her in for a dental. The dental Tech told me that as soon as she opened her mouth, she "smelled the unmistakable smell of infection" - and sure enough, x-rays revealed a cracked tooth that was cracked below the gum line, and infected -
So my point is that just looking clean and healthy does not tell you everything - bad breath tells you that there IS a problem, but they may have to get in there, and do x-rays to figure out what is going on...


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## Carrie-e (Oct 23, 2012)

I agree with Tiny Poodles,at 2 years old your standard shouldn't have bad breath and its definitely worth a trip to the vet,hope you get on okay.


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## Joy (Apr 25, 2013)

If the dental checks out okay, try changing the food. I have found that changing my dogs diet stopped bad breath that wasn't related to tooth problems. Apparently the bad breath was coming from the stomach and poor digestion. I am now feeding Blue Buffalo chicken and rice and the bad breath has improved greatly.


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