What Bad Breath Is Actually Telling You
The smell is hard to ignore, and most owners either laugh it off or assume it's normal for dogs and cats. It isn't. Bad breath in pets, the clinical term is halitosis, is produced by anaerobic bacteria colonising the space between the tooth and the gum. These bacteria don't need oxygen to survive. They thrive in the warm, moist pockets that form as gum tissue pulls away from the tooth surface. The smell is a byproduct of their metabolic waste. When you smell it, the bacterial load is already significant.
