Yes, dental chews work, as long as your dog actually chews them and gets one every day. A chew scrapes soft plaque off the teeth as the dog bites down. Chews that carry the VOHC seal have passed two trials in which dogs built up at least 15% less new plaque or tartar than dogs eating dry food alone.
That's a real effect, and a limited one. A chew slows new build-up. It doesn't remove tartar that has already set hard, it doesn't reach under the gumline, and daily brushing still does far more. It also comes with calories, and for a small dog one chew can be most of the day's treat allowance.
Thinking of a seaweed product instead of a chew? Read can dogs eat seaweed first, because seaweed brings iodine with it.
What the VOHC seal promises, in plain numbers
The Veterinary Oral Health Council (VOHC) doesn't test products. The maker runs the trials and VOHC checks the results against a fixed protocol. For a chew, one group of dogs eats dry food alone and the other gets the chew as the pack says, for at least 28 days.
The bar is a 15% reduction in each of two trials, and 20% on average across the two. Say the dogs on dry food alone score 10 for tartar. The chew dogs have to score 8.5 or lower in each trial, and 8 or lower on average.
Two details change how you should read the seal. The dogs' teeth are scaled and polished to a score of zero at the start, so the trials measure how much new plaque or tartar builds up on clean teeth. They don't measure tartar coming off. And VOHC gives no claim for gingivitis, the red, inflamed gum edge, so the seal says nothing about gums.
Plaque and tartar are separate claims, because the soft film and the hard layer it turns into are different problems, as our page on plaque vs tartar explains. We counted the VOHC list for dogs dated August 2026 on October 31, 2026. Of 35 edible chews, 22 are accepted for both plaque and tartar and 13 for tartar alone.
The published trials show the same pattern. In a 2020 study of 12 beagles, paid for by a pet retailer, three chews each cut tartar coverage by 20 to 37% against food alone over 28 days. Plaque coverage was only 12 to 13% lower with two of them, and the third made no clear difference (Carroll and colleagues, Journal of Animal Science). Gum scores were no different with any of them.
Dental chews vs brushing
Brushing wins. After a scale and polish, daily brushing controlled plaque more than three times as well as a daily dental chew (Allan and colleagues, 2019, Journal of Small Animal Practice). The AAHA and WSAVA dental guidelines both put daily brushing first, then products with the VOHC seal.
A chew still counts for something on teeth that haven't been cleaned. In an 8-week trial on dogs with existing deposits, a daily chew lowered them about as much as brushing every other day. Neither routine got the teeth clean (Gawor and colleagues, 2025, Journal of Veterinary Dentistry).
So a chew is a good second line, or a daily backup on the days the brush doesn't come out. Brushing, chews and every other home method are ranked by their evidence on our home teeth-cleaning page.
Why a dog that gulps gets nothing from it
VOHC classes chews that clean by chewing as "mechanically effective" products, which means the cleaning comes from teeth sinking in and dragging through the chew. A chew swallowed in two bites spends a few seconds against the teeth, so it barely scrapes anything.
Time in the mouth seems to matter. In one trial run by the chews' maker, a flexible chew that took about 12 minutes to eat lowered breath gases, while a hard one finished in about 3 minutes gave a drop small enough to be chance (Croft and colleagues, 2022, BMC Veterinary Research).
Gulping is also the main safety risk. In a case series from 19 veterinary hospitals, 31 dogs had a dental chew stuck in the esophagus, the tube from mouth to stomach. Twenty-six were small dogs, six needed chest surgery and about a quarter died (Leib and Sartor, 2008, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association). Those cases date from 2000 to 2006, and chews have changed since.
Watch your dog with a new chew for the first week. If it swallows big pieces, a chew is the wrong tool for that dog, and our comparison of powders, chews and water additives covers the options that don't depend on chewing.
How many dental chews a day, and the calories
One a day. That's the feeding guide on the dental sticks in the table below, and it's what the trials tested, and a second chew doubles the calories.
The WSAVA Nutrition Committee counts chews as treats, and says treats should stay under 10% of a dog's daily calories. Its table gives the treat allowance for an average healthy adult dog by weight. Against it, we set the calories one maker publishes for its original dental stick, in the size it gives for each weight band (22, 54 and 78 kcal).
| Dog's weight | Treat allowance a day (WSAVA) | One chew in the maker's size | Share of the allowance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 kg (9 lb) | 24 kcal | 22 kcal | 92% |
| 8 kg (18 lb) | 40 kcal | 22 kcal | 55% |
| 10 kg (22 lb) | 47 kcal | 22 kcal, or 54 kcal one size up | 47%, or 115% |
| 15 kg (33 lb) | 64 kcal | 54 kcal | 84% |
| 20 kg (44 lb) | 79 kcal | 78 kcal | 99% |
| 30 kg (66 lb) | 108 kcal | 78 kcal | 72% |
| 40 kg (88 lb) | 134 kcal | 78 kcal | 58% |
A 20 kg dog on a large stick has used its treats for the day, and training treats, pill pockets and scraps all count too. If your dog has a chew every day, take its calories out of a meal. Long-lasting chews can be far worse, and WSAVA lists a 190 g rawhide bone at about 700 kcal. Calories vary between brands, so check your own pack.
The size rule and the hardness rule
Size first. The VOHC list carries one warning above its chews, to feed the right size and check the pack for your dog's weight range. Too small and it gets swallowed whole. Take a chew away once it's worn down small enough to swallow in one go. WSAVA also asks owners to supervise every chew.
If your dog sits on the line between two sizes, the bigger one is harder to gulp but costs more calories. That 10 kg dog goes from 47% of its treat allowance to 115%.
At the other end, many Chihuahuas weigh less than the 3.2 kg that one maker's toy-size stick is rated for, and for a 2 kg dog that stick's 22 kcal is more than the day's 14 kcal treat allowance, so our guide to Chihuahua dental care covers home care for a mouth that small.
Then hardness. Press your thumbnail into the chew. If it doesn't dent, it's hard enough to break a tooth. In a lab test on teeth from dogs that had died, the big upper cheek tooth (the fourth premolar) broke at an average of 1,281 newtons, a force within the maximum bite of an average dog. Half of those breaks exposed the pulp, the living center of the tooth (Soltero-Rivera and colleagues, 2019, Frontiers in Veterinary Science). Antlers, hooves, hard nylon, cooked bones and dense leg bones such as beef shin all fail the thumbnail test. Soft raw bones such as chicken wings are a different case. Give them raw, sized so your dog has to chew, with you watching, and wash up as you would after handling raw chicken.
When a chew isn't the right tool
Some dogs are better off without a daily chew. That includes dogs that need to lose weight, dogs on a kidney or heart diet, and dogs on a food-allergy diet trial, where any extra food can spoil the result. Ask your vet before adding chews for any of them.
For a dog that has to watch its calories, a powder on food avoids the treat problem altogether. Caniclean is ours, measured by body weight. Unlike a chew with the seal, it isn't VOHC-accepted, and it works alongside brushing, not in its place.
No chew fixes a mouth that already has a problem. A tooth that has cracked or snapped on something hard needs a vet the same day. For other signs, such as bleeding gums or a swollen face, our guide to dental disease in dogs says how soon each one needs seeing.
Questions owners ask
Do vets recommend dental chews?
The AAHA and WSAVA dental guidelines recommend brushing first and VOHC-accepted products, including chews, alongside it. Look for the seal and check whether it covers plaque, tartar or both.
Can dental chews replace brushing?
No. In a head-to-head trial brushing controlled plaque more than three times as well. A chew covers the days you don't brush.
Can a dental chew remove tartar?
Not tartar that has already hardened. VOHC trials start on teeth scaled clean and measure how much less new tartar forms. Existing tartar needs a cleaning at your vet.
Can puppies have dental chews?
Only chews made for puppies, in the size for the puppy's weight. Several adult dental sticks are labeled as not suitable for puppies, and the VOHC list includes separate puppy chews.
References
- Allan RM, Adams VJ, Johnston NW. Prospective randomised blinded clinical trial assessing effectiveness of three dental plaque control methods in dogs. J Small Anim Pract. 2019;60(4), 212-217. doi:10.1111/jsap.12964
- Bellows J, Berg ML, Dennis S, et al. 2019 AAHA dental care guidelines for dogs and cats. J Am Anim Hosp Assoc. 2019;55(2), 49-69. doi:10.5326/JAAHA-MS-6933
- Carroll MQ, Oba PM, Sieja KM, et al. Effects of novel dental chews on oral health outcomes and halitosis in adult dogs. J Anim Sci. 2020;98(9), skaa274. doi:10.1093/jas/skaa274
- Croft JM, Patel KV, Inui T, Ruparell A, Staunton R, Holcombe LJ. Effectiveness of oral care interventions on malodour in dogs. BMC Vet Res. 2022;18, 164. doi:10.1186/s12917-022-03267-8
- Gawor J, Jank M, Harvey CE, Nicolas CS. Effectiveness of dental homecare protocols in unscaled dogs. J Vet Dent. 2025;42(3), 176-181. doi:10.1177/08987564241292769
- Leib MS, Sartor LL. Esophageal foreign body obstruction caused by a dental chew treat in 31 dogs (2000-2006). J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2008;232(7), 1021-1025. doi:10.2460/javma.232.7.1021
- Mars Petcare. Dentastix original dental treats, toy and small, small and medium, and large, calorie content (calculated) and feeding guide. pedigree.com, read October 31, 2026
- Niemiec B, et al. WSAVA global dental guidelines. J Small Anim Pract. 2026;67(10), 859-987. doi:10.1111/jsap.70057
- Soltero-Rivera M, Elliott MI, Hast MW, et al. Fracture limits of maxillary fourth premolar teeth in domestic dogs under applied forces. Front Vet Sci. 2019;5, 339. doi:10.3389/fvets.2018.00339
- Veterinary Oral Health Council. Trial protocol requirements, and Accepted products for dogs (August 2026). vohc.org
- WSAVA Nutrition Committee. Feeding treats to your dog (v2). 2024. wsava.org