Happi Doggy Dental Chew Zest - 2.5 Inch - Avocado

The Happi Doggy Dental Chew Zest in the 2.5 inch size is the everyday half of the range: the same meat-free chew as the Care line, in six flavours, without a functional ingredient added. Pick by what your dog likes, since the dental work is done by the base recipe and is the same in all six.

Key Features

• Six Flavours: Milk, strawberry, apple, mint, orange and avocado
• Size: 2.5 inch chews in a 150g bag, which Happi Doggy give as 18 pieces -- the size for small dogs
• Same Base In Every Flavour: Sodium hexametaphosphate for tartar, perilla and eucalyptus for breath. The flavour changes the taste, not the dental effect
• Meat-Free And Rawhide-Free: A tapioca starch and glycerin chew
• Grain-Free: Tapioca and pea flour rather than wheat

The Flavours, And The Claims Made For Them

• Milk: calcium and casein. Happi Doggy say the minerals help rebuild enamel, which overstates it -- enamel has no living cells and cannot be rebuilt, though saliva can remineralise very early surface damage. Casein does form a film on the tooth surface. Note the whole range contains a milk protein anyway.
• Strawberry: described as whitening the enamel through malic acid. That is a human cosmetic claim and it does not hold up well. Discoloured teeth in a dog are usually tartar, or an enamel defect from an illness or knock while the teeth were forming -- neither of which a strawberry touches.
• Apple: the reasoning here is better than most. Chewing something firm and slightly tart does stimulate saliva, and saliva is the mouth's own buffer. There are no apple pips in the chew, which matters, because pips contain cyanogenic compounds.
• Mint: the breath flavour. It covers odour rather than treating its cause, and the claim that it fortifies enamel and strengthens gums is a stretch. This is culinary mint, not pennyroyal, which is the mint that is genuinely toxic to dogs.
• Orange: sold on vitamin C supporting gum collagen. True for people and guinea pigs, much weaker for dogs -- dogs make their own vitamin C in the liver, so dietary vitamin C is far less critical for them than the claim implies.
• Avocado: see the note below, which is the one most people want.

About The Avocado One

Avocado appears on every list of foods to keep away from dogs, so it is worth being specific rather than alarmed. The compound people worry about is persin, and it is concentrated in the leaves, the skin and the stone rather than the flesh. Dogs are also markedly less sensitive to it than birds, rabbits, horses and cattle, which are the animals the serious warnings were written for. A small amount of avocado used as a flavouring in a processed chew is a different proposition from a dog getting into a whole avocado, where the real hazards are the fat load and the stone -- a classic cause of a blocked gut. If your dog has had pancreatitis or is on a low-fat diet, or you would simply rather not, there are other flavours here. And keep fresh avocados, skins and stones off the counter regardless.

What Is Actually In It

Happi Doggy's published list for this range runs: tapioca starch, powdered cellulose, pea flour, glycerin, apple fibre, sodium caseinate, Lactobacillus acidophilus, calcium citrate, sodium hexametaphosphate, lecithin, perilla extract, prebiotics and eucalyptus oil, plus the flavour's own ingredients and colouring. One of those matters more than the rest. Sodium hexametaphosphate is the ingredient doing the tartar work, and it is the only thing in the chew with a well-established mechanism: it binds the calcium in saliva so that it cannot settle onto the teeth and harden. The rest is mostly starch and fibre, which is what makes the chew chewy.

How A Dental Chew Works, And What It Cannot Do

Two things are happening. The chewing itself wipes soft plaque off the tooth surface, which is why a chew a dog has to work at for several minutes does far more than one it swallows in two bites. Alongside that, the sodium hexametaphosphate interferes with plaque hardening into tartar. Neither effect reaches below the gumline, and neither removes tartar that has already formed -- that is a scale and polish under anaesthetic, and nothing you feed will substitute for it. Brushing with a dog toothpaste is still the gold standard, daily if you can manage it. A chew is something you do as well, not instead. If you want independent proof a chew works, look for the Veterinary Oral Health Council seal, awarded only after trials measuring plaque or tartar reduction; we have not seen one on this range, which very few chews carry.

Dogs Rarely Get Cavities

A lot of dental chew copy, including Happi Doggy's own, talks about tooth decay, cavities and rebuilding enamel. That language comes from human dentistry and it transfers badly. True cavities are uncommon in dogs -- the figure usually quoted is around one dog in twenty. What affects most dogs is periodontal disease: plaque hardening into tartar at the gum margin, the gum becoming inflamed, and the attachment around the tooth slowly breaking down. The majority of dogs have some of it by three years old. So the question worth asking about any chew is whether it slows plaque and tartar, not whether it stops decay. Enamel cannot be rebuilt either; there are no living cells in it.

About Fresh Breath

The perilla extract and the eucalyptus oil are the breath ingredients, and they do what mint does for us -- cover the smell for a while. Bad breath is a symptom rather than a hygiene problem. It is usually gum disease or a tooth that has gone bad, and sometimes kidney disease, diabetes or something stuck in the mouth. A dog whose breath has got noticeably worse needs someone to look in its mouth, not a stronger-smelling chew.

Match The Chew To The Dog

• The range comes as a 2.5 inch chew and a 4 inch chew. The small one is for small dogs -- given to a labrador it stops being a chew and becomes something to swallow whole.
• Stay in the room while your dog has it, and take the last stub away once it is small enough to go down in one piece.
• These are soft and pliable rather than hard, which is kinder to teeth than a bone, an antler or a nylon chew -- all of which can fracture a molar. A dog that bolts its food can still swallow a large piece.
• Puppies still losing their milk teeth, and old dogs with loose or missing teeth, do better with something softer still.
• Fresh water alongside. A starch and glycerin chew is dry work.

Meat-Free, But Not Dairy-Free

Happi Doggy market this range as vegetarian, and that part holds up: there is no meat in it and no rawhide, which is the main reason people buy it. Two details the packaging does not dwell on. The base recipe contains sodium caseinate, a milk protein, so these are not dairy-free and a dog that reacts to dairy is not in the clear. And some flavours are coloured with carmine, which is made from insects, so vegan is not quite the right word either. Recipes and colourings do change, so read the panel on the bag you receive.

About The Hypoallergenic Claim

Happi Doggy describe the formula as grain-free and hypoallergenic. Grain-free is simply true -- the base is tapioca and pea rather than wheat. Hypoallergenic is a looser word than it sounds. No food is hypoallergenic for every dog, and a real food allergy is identified by an elimination diet run with a vet rather than chosen off a shelf. The milk protein in the base is the thing to know about here.

It Counts As Food

The usual advice is to keep treats under about a tenth of a dog's daily calories, and a dental chew is a far bigger piece of food than a training treat. Take the equivalent out of meals rather than adding it on top. Happi Doggy publish the analysis for the range at roughly 9.8 per cent protein and 5.9 per cent fat with very little fibre, so most of what your dog is eating here is starch.

Who Makes It

Happi Doggy is a Singapore dental chew brand, sold in some markets under the name Happi Skippi. The whole range is meat-free and rawhide-free, built on a soft tapioca starch and glycerin chew rather than a pressed hide, and the brand lists the chews as suitable for all life stages.

Good To Know

• Introduce any new chew gradually. One a day at most to start with, and watch the stools for a couple of days -- a sudden change of treat is a common cause of a loose morning.
• Store the bag sealed and out of the sun. Glycerin chews go hard and brittle if they dry out, and a brittle chew snaps into pieces instead of being worn down.
• Not a substitute for a dental check. If you can see brown deposits along the gumline, or the gum is red where it meets the tooth, the chews are not going to fix it.
• Happi Doggy's own copy lists vitamins A, E, M and H in the avocado chew. M and H are archaic names that nobody uses any more: vitamin M is folate and vitamin H is biotin.
• At 2.5 inch these are small-dog chews. For anything bigger than a terrier, the 4 inch version is the one to order.