There are a variety of store-bought products available to assist in cleaning your dog’s teeth; however, we have found that the best solution is most often the natural solution. When you give your dog a bone, you’re offering more than just a tasty treat. The act of chewing the bone actually helps to clean the teeth by scraping plaque off the surface as well as helping to strengthen the gums. To keep your dog’s teeth their strongest, one bone every other day, or about three to four bones per week is recommended. The best time to do this would be during your own meal times, when the family is sitting down and relaxed.

Preparation is simple: the bone should be raw, with at least a small amount of meat still attached. It is recommended that you do not give your dog a cooked bone, as the process of cooking will soften it and cause splintering which could hurt your dog’s mouth or cause choking. Freezing the bone before-hand is an effective way of killing any harmful bacteria that may have collected on the surface, but let the bone thaw before giving it to your dog. The size of the bone is, of course, relative to the size of your dog. For medium-sized working breeds such as German Shepherds, Belgian Malinois or Dutch Shepherds, we recommend a bone that is no larger than the size of your clenched fist.

On a day-to-day basis, a raw bone is all your protection dog or guard dog needs to keep its teeth clean, strong and healthy. For long-term care, most veterinarians perform short oral examinations as a part of your dog’s regular check ups. Your veterinarian should inform you when an extensive cleaning is necessary, or if any serious problems with the teeth and gums are apparent.

The first thing most people notice about German Shepherds and other intimidating looking dogs are the canine teeth, the four large teeth in the front. You don’t have to be bitten to know that contact between those teeth and any part of your body would hurt. A lot. Take my word for it. Anyway, dogs use these teeth for several reasons including grabbing, puncturing and shredding their prey. They also naturally use them for defense. Your personal protection dog, if trained correctly, also uses them for YOUR defense

So here’s the problem: the majority of protection and guard dog trainers don’t train their dogs to use these teeth. Instead, their dogs are conditioned to make use of the back molars, with the full mouth, in an attempt to deliver “bone crushing” bites. Police dogs use their back molars when apprehending a suspect. Once the dog has taken a bite, he or she hangs on (there are countless police dog training videos on YouTube that show this). This is called “bite-and-hold”. It’s not safe for the handler and it’s not safe for the dog either. Instead, dogs should  bite with their canine teeth, multiple times after targeting the weapon hand. Ideally, they should deliver 7 or 8 shredding, devastating bites in a matter of seconds to different areas of the body until commanded to stop. The scene is quite frenzied. In theory, full mouth bites result in fewer injuries to the suspect and, I guess, less lawsuits for the police. In practice, the severity of injuries is just localized to one area of the body. The drawback is that the life of the dog is endangered as is the life of the K9 handler.

After biting and hanging on, the suspect is given an extended opportunity to stab or strangle the dog. It seems unlikely that anyone would be able to muster the courage to do this but add in the use of pain numbing controlled substances and we have a recipe for disaster. Adrenaline and the strong desire to evade arrest are also strong motivators. Once the dog has been killed, the officer is left to deal with situation. Training a protection dog for personal use to utilize a full mouth bite when deployed can lead to disastrous results. There’s no question. So don’t be fooled when a trainer recommends a dog that is trained to bite with its back molars

Mother Nature dictates that dogs defend with their canines; there’s really no need for improvement.