Shooting Times & Country Magazine
BRUSHING UP
Dogs suffer tooth decay but don’t use your toothpaste
Arecent story in the national press warned against brushing your dog’s teeth using human toothpaste. The fluoride in toothpaste can make dogs vomit and give them diarrhoea, while xylitol, an artificial sweetener also present in some brands of toothpaste, can be even more deadly. There are plenty of dog toothpastes available, so there is no excuse for using the wrong sort.
I suspect that most of us have never brushed our dog’s teeth, let alone used the wrong sort of toothpaste. However, it is a worrying fact that dental disease is the second most commonly diagnosed health issue for dogs. The problem is that most commercial dog foods — even the best ones — lead to a potentially dangerous build-up of plaque on the It is also worth remembering that a loaded shotgun is an exceedingly dangerous weapon, especially when handled by someone who has had a drop too much.
From a beater’s or a picker-up’s point of view, working your dog for a group of inebriated Guns isn’t much fun and it must be hugely frustrating for the gamekeeper, too. His job is to provide good sport and to have Guns who would rather drink than shoot must be disappointing.
On the first shoot I went on this season, the Guns stopped after the second drive for a drink and it was exactly 100 minutes before the action started again. That is an awfully long time to keep the beaters and pickersup waiting. A drive later they stopped again for a long lunch; I wondered why they bothered with the shooting.
Wounding
One worry is that a Gun who has had a glass too many is more likely to make mistakes, shoot less accurately and almost certainly wound more birds than he (or she) kills cleanly. The Code of Good Shooting Practice makes no mention of drinking and shooting: perhaps it should?
I have never seen a drunk dog and most dogs I know would rather drink dog’s teeth, leading not only to tooth decay, but bad gums and bad breath.
Wolves don’t suffer from plaque, as a natural diet of raw meat, bones and hide keeps teeth in great shape. If you feed your dog a BARF (bones and raw food) diet then, like the wolves, its teeth are likely to be in much better condition than an animal that only consumes commercially prepared food out of a packet. There is nothing better than a good bone for keeping your dog’s teeth clean, but there are a variety of chews available from pet shops that are claimed to be equally effective.
My 12-year-old springer, Rowan, is fed a BARF diet and her teeth are in pretty good shape for a senior dog. However, a recent whiff of halitosis prompted a check-up of her mouth, revealing a nasty abscess on the inside of both cheeks. She was off to the vet the same day where she was prescribed a course of antibiotics that, 10 days later, has almost cleared up the problem. The vet was baffled as water from a muddy puddle than anything else. However, if you offer a thirsty dog beer or wine, it might well lap it up. A dog’s body mass is much smaller than our own, so the alcohol will affect it much more quickly. It is not just drinking that can make a dog drunk. Eating rotten, fermenting apples can do so, as can consuming fermenting bread dough.
Booze is poisonous to dogs — their kidneys are unable to filter the alcohol — so though a small drop is unlikely to hurt them, anything more can be exceedingly dangerous. to what had caused the abscesses, but it was a reminder to me that I should be checking her mouth regularly and keeping her teeth clean.
Remarkably, this was Rowan’s first visit to the vet except for her annual health check, so I could hardly complain about the bill. Quite why she has been so healthy up to now is debatable, but it must be a matter of luck, good genes and a sound diet. The symptoms of a drunk dog are almost too obvious to mention, but lack of co-ordination, tremors, vomiting and difficulty breathing are among them. If in doubt, take the dog straight to the vet.
I might be wrong, but I suspect that the 11am shooting drink has been copied from the hunting field, where it is a long-standing practice to have a glass at the meet. However, this was traditionally to give the riders Dutch courage, not something you need when facing nothing more dangerous than a pheasant.