I’ve been looking in dogs’ mouths for a quarter century and I can tell you with some confidence that dental disease is the single most under-treated condition in veterinary medicine. Not because we don’t know about it. Because owners don’t look, and vets don’t push hard enough.
Herding breeds are no exception. In some ways, they’re worse - and not for the reasons you’d think.
The Scale of the Problem
Here’s a statistic that should bother you: by age three, roughly 80% of dogs have some form of periodontal disease. That’s not a number I’ve made up. It’s been consistent across multiple studies and it matches what I see on the table every single day.
With herding breeds specifically - Collies, Australian Shepherds, German Shepherds, Malinois - I see a pattern that’s both predictable and frustrating. These are active, seemingly healthy dogs. Their owners are often more engaged and knowledgeable than average. And yet they come in at age five or six with stage three periodontal disease because nobody ever properly looked at their back teeth.
The problem isn’t ignorance. It’s that dental disease develops slowly, dogs are extraordinarily good at hiding oral pain, and the front teeth that owners actually see are usually the last ones affected.
Why Herding Breeds Get Overlooked
There’s an irony here that I think is worth naming. Herding breed owners tend to be more health-conscious than average. They know about health clearances and genetic testing. They research diet carefully. They keep up with vaccinations. These aren’t negligent owners.
But that same awareness creates a blind spot. When you’re focused on hip scores and eye tests and MDR1 status - all important things - dental health feels mundane by comparison. It’s not exciting. It’s not breed-specific in the dramatic way that some conditions are. So it slides down the priority list.
I’ve also noticed that owners of working dogs sometimes dismiss dental concerns because their dog is still eating and performing normally. A Border Collie with painful teeth will still herd sheep. A German Shepherd with an infected premolar will still do protection work. These dogs have been bred for generations to push through discomfort. That’s admirable in some contexts and a genuine problem in this one.
What I Actually See
Let me walk you through what a typical case looks like, because I think the specifics matter.
A client brings in their seven-year-old Australian Shepherd for something unrelated - maybe a limp, maybe a vaccine update. During the examination, I lift the lip and check the teeth. The canines look fine. The incisors are reasonable. But when I get to the premolars and molars along the side, there’s a line of calculus build-up, the gum is receding, and there’s that distinctive sour smell that tells me there’s infection underneath.
The owner is surprised. “He’s never shown any sign of mouth pain.”
Of course he hasn’t. He’s a shepherd. Showing pain isn’t in the programme.
What’s actually happening underneath that calm exterior is bone loss around the tooth roots, bacterial infection tracking along the gum line, and a low-grade inflammatory process that’s been running for months or years. That inflammation isn’t confined to the mouth, either. There’s growing evidence linking chronic dental disease to kidney, liver, and cardiac problems. It can also exacerbate existing conditions like seasonal allergies and skin problems, because a chronic inflammatory load in one system makes the whole body more reactive. The mouth is connected to the rest of the body. Infections don’t stay politely localised.
The Specific Challenges in Herding Breeds
Not all dental problems are equal across breeds, and there are a few things I see more commonly in the herding group.
Fractured teeth from chewing. Working dogs chew. They chew sticks, bones, stones, fencing, whatever’s available. Slab fractures of the upper fourth premolar - the big carnassial tooth - are probably the most common dental emergency I see in herding breeds. The tooth cracks along one side, often exposing the pulp, and infection follows. This needs extraction or root canal treatment, both of which require general anaesthesia and aren’t cheap.
Worn teeth in older working dogs. Dogs that carry balls obsessively (and what Collie doesn’t?) or that have spent years working with livestock develop significant tooth wear. The enamel thins, exposing the softer dentine underneath, and eventually the pulp can become exposed. I’ve seen working Collies at ten years old with teeth worn down to nubs.
Malocclusion in certain lines. Some herding breeds, particularly German Shepherds, have enough variation in head shape that malocclusion - teeth not meeting properly - is reasonably common. When teeth don’t occlude normally, food trapping and abnormal wear accelerate disease.
Gingival hyperplasia. Overgrowth of gum tissue is something I see periodically in Collies and Shelties. It creates false pockets around the teeth that trap debris and bacteria. It’s usually manageable but needs monitoring.
What Owners Should Actually Be Doing
Right. Practical advice. This is where I try to be realistic rather than idealistic, because I know what people actually do versus what I tell them to do.
Brushing
Yes, brushing your dog’s teeth is the single most effective thing you can do. Daily is ideal. Every other day is acceptable. Once a week is better than nothing but honestly not much better.
Use a proper dog toothpaste - not human toothpaste, which contains ingredients that aren’t meant to be swallowed. Use a soft-bristled brush or a finger brush, and focus on the outer surfaces of the teeth where the gum meets the enamel. You don’t need to do the insides - the tongue does a reasonable job there.
The reality? Maybe 5% of my clients brush their dog’s teeth regularly. I’ve accepted this. I still recommend it, but I’ve stopped being surprised when people don’t.
Dental Chews and Diet
There’s a spectrum of usefulness here. At one end, you’ve got proper veterinary dental chews that have been tested and shown to reduce plaque. At the other end, you’ve got those green bone-shaped things from the supermarket that do approximately nothing except add calories.
Raw bones can help keep teeth clean, as I’ve discussed in my thoughts on raw feeding, but they come with the fracture risk I mentioned. If you’re going to use bones, softer options like chicken necks or turkey necks for smaller herding breeds, and larger marrow bones for German Shepherds, are better than weight-bearing bones from large animals.
Kibble, despite what some manufacturers claim, does not clean teeth any more than eating crackers cleans yours. The idea that the mechanical action of crunching kibble removes plaque is marketing, not science.
Regular Veterinary Dental Checks
This is the non-negotiable one. Your dog’s teeth need professional assessment at least annually, and in breeds prone to dental disease or dogs over seven, twice a year is better.
A proper dental check isn’t just me glancing at the canines. It’s lifting the lips, checking every tooth I can see, assessing the gums, and smelling the breath (unpleasant but informative). If I find problems, we may need dental radiographs under anaesthesia to see what’s happening at the root level, because the visible part of the tooth tells you maybe 40% of the story.
The Anaesthesia Question
I need to address this because it comes up constantly: “He’s too old for anaesthesia.”
No. Probably not. Anaesthesia in modern veterinary practice is remarkably safe, even in older dogs. The risk of leaving severe dental disease untreated almost always outweighs the risk of a properly managed anaesthetic. I’ve done dental procedures on 14-year-old dogs and had them go home the same day, eating dinner.
What matters is proper pre-anaesthetic assessment. Blood work, cardiac evaluation if indicated, appropriate drug protocols. A healthy 10-year-old herding breed is generally an excellent anaesthetic candidate.
The dogs that worry me aren’t old dogs - they’re dogs with concurrent disease. Heart conditions, liver problems, severe kidney disease. And you know what often contributes to kidney and liver problems in older dogs? Chronic untreated dental infection. It’s circular.
When your ageing shepherd develops health issues, dental disease is often a complicating factor that gets missed because people are focused on the more obvious problems. Understanding the full picture of senior dog health means not ignoring what’s happening in the mouth.
The Cost Conversation
I won’t pretend dental work is cheap. A full dental procedure - anaesthesia, radiographs, scaling, polishing, and any necessary extractions - can easily run into several hundred pounds. Multiple extractions push that higher.
But here’s the calculation I want owners to make: prevention versus treatment.
Annual dental checks as part of a normal consultation cost very little. Brushing costs almost nothing. A bag of decent dental chews costs a fraction of surgery.
A dental procedure under anaesthesia with three extractions and antibiotics costs significantly more. And that’s if you catch it before it becomes an emergency. An emergency extraction of a fractured tooth with abscess, out of hours, costs even more again.
I’ve had clients spend more on a single emergency dental procedure than they would have spent on a decade of preventive care. Every time, they say the same thing: “I wish I’d known.”
You know now.
The Breeding Angle
I want to mention something that’s relevant to anyone involved in breeding herding dogs. Dental health has a hereditary component. Dogs with crowded teeth, narrow jaws, or malocclusion pass these traits on. Dogs with unusually rapid tartar accumulation often produce puppies that develop the same pattern.
The best breeders I work with assess dental conformation as part of their breeding decisions. It’s not typically a formal health test in the way that hip scoring is, but responsible breeders notice when certain lines produce dogs with dental problems and they factor that into their planning. This kind of attention to the whole dog, not just the headline health tests, is what separates genuinely thoughtful breeding programmes from operations that tick boxes without understanding why.
What I Wish Owners Knew
If you take nothing else from this article, take these three things:
Lift the lip. Once a week, lift your dog’s lip and look at the back teeth. If you see heavy brown or yellow build-up, red or swollen gums, or smell something foul, book a dental check. Don’t wait for your dog to tell you it hurts, because they won’t.
Don’t wait for symptoms. By the time your dog is dropping food, pawing at their face, or refusing hard treats, the problem is advanced. Early dental disease has no visible symptoms. That’s the whole point.
Age is not a disease. If your vet recommends dental work for your older dog, the fact that they’re ten or twelve isn’t, by itself, a reason to refuse. Discuss the risks properly, do the pre-anaesthetic work, and make an informed decision. Living with chronic pain because “he’s too old for surgery” is not kindness.
The Honest Summary
Dental health in herding breeds isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t get the attention that hip dysplasia or MDR1 sensitivity gets. There’s no genetic test for it, no certificate to frame, no score to compare with other dogs.
But it affects the vast majority of dogs, it causes genuine suffering that owners don’t recognise, and it’s largely preventable with basic care.
I’ve been saying this for 25 years. I’ll keep saying it until people start lifting the lip.