Be Canine Kind
Why Chewing is Important for Your Dog’s Health – How to Find the Perfect Chew Toys for Your Dog
Why Chewing is Important for Your Dog’s Health - How to Find the Perfect Chew Toys for Your Dog
By Perky Tails
Chewing is important for your dog’s health and as carnivores, it is ingrained into their DNA as a core instinct. The following article will outline four reasons why chewing is important for your dog before discussing how to find the perfect toys for their chewing habits.
Why Chewing is Important for Your Dog’s Health
Dental Care From puppyhood through to senior years, chewing helps our dogs to keep their teeth clean and to assist maintaining healthy gums. Chew toys can be used as part of a healthy dental routine (alongside teeth brushing and flossing). This is useful to help prevent gum disease or tooth decay without causing any damage; different textures of toys are best as they help to “rough up” and remove build-up of tartar on your dog’s teeth.
A more in depth look at dental care for your dog can be found here:
Muscle Dexterity – Dog chew toys also benefit our pups by improving their muscle dexterity. As they grow up, our dogs use their neck and jaw muscles and using chew toys is a great way to keep their masticatory muscles strong as the continued movement helps to keep the muscles supple and active through later years.
Burn off Excess Energy – As the weather is getting colder, walks may be getting shorter or less frequent and chewing can be a way for some dogs to burn any excess energy. Chew toys are a healthy way for our pooches to help release any built-up energy throughout the day and discourage destructive chewing.
Stress Relief – Chewing can also be a way for many dogs to alleviate anxiety or stress, especially in puppies that are experiencing bouts of separation anxiety whilst being left at home alone during the working day. Similar to human babies, puppies tend to learn from chewing but “puppy chewing” tends to be much more destructive.
How to Find the Perfect Chew Toys for Your Dog
Choosing the right chew toys will not only help them have a happy and healthy start to life but also save your furniture from total annihilation. When selecting the best chew toy for your dog, the sheer variety can be very overwhelming. However, looking at the Five Welfare Needs is a good way to start off and help you to make your decision.
Use Toys That Meet Their Welfare Needs
The Five Welfare Needs are important because they outline the five requirements (environment, diet, health, companionship and behaviour. For example, the behavioural need suggests that dogs require the freedom to play and that when they don’t have this their mental health will suffer. Dog puzzle toys make great tools for meeting your dog’s behavioural needs because they challenge and stimulate dogs mentally.
If you would like to learn more about The Five Welfare Needs, you can do so by following the link:
Use Toys That are Mentally Stimulating for Dogs
Toys that include a puzzle element are a perfect way to address the need for suitable behavioural patterns as they can help your pup to keep their brain active and healthy as well as keeping them occupied – this can include toys or balls that house hidden treats or even those that offer different textures to help mix things up for your pup.
Bone and antler alternatives are another great way of helping your dog with their need to chew, but without the worry or dangers of shattering and splintering. These types of chew toys are designed to be extremely durable, so are perfect for aggressive chewers and can also be found in a variety of flavours options to keep your pups tastebuds happy.
A good idea when considering chew toys, would be to consult your vet as they will be able to go through your dog’s particular requirements in greater detail and advise on which sort of toys to avoid. For example, although rawhides can have benefits for your dog’s dental health, some brands of rawhides are not only choking hazards but have also been known to contain trace chemicals which are dangerous when ingested (predominantly in rawhides that are imported due to preservative chemicals).
More information on this and information on rawhide alternatives can be found here: https://www.caninejournal.com/rawhide-bones/
Use Toys That are Mentally Stimulating for Dogs
Other things to consider when choosing the perfect chew toy for your dog are durability and size. You need to ensure that the toys truly are “dog proof” and avoid toys that could be ingested or chewed off. Toys that contain googly eyes, ribbons or bells or anything that could splinter are best avoided.
When thinking about durability, we also mean how much your pup actually enjoys chewing. If they are an actively aggressive chewer, maybe look at toys that are a little tougher or have a puzzle aspect such as hidden treats to help the toys “survive” a little longer.
Don’t forget to choose a chew toy that is suitably sized, so as not to be a choking hazard – most toys will provide guidance on whether they are suitable for small/medium/large sized dogs. Remember that chew toys should always have a little ‘give’ in them, to avoid causing tooth damage.
When shopping in person, try to dig your nail into rubber or plastic chew toys to test how hard/dense the material is. Chew toys with little or no give in them can put too much pressure on your dog’s teeth and can cause chipping/breakage.