Pam
I haven't read your whole post yet but I have been giving my cat raw forever she's in her 20's and as long as I give her a raw piece of chicken - this has cleaned her teeth. Dogs if their not allergic to chicken the same or I have a 1 day bone day - which is beef bones or bone marrow to clean their teeth. I even got a Bernese Mt'n dog that was 1 yr and 2 mos - his teeth were horrible. I immediate put his on raw and his tartered teeth came back to being pearly white. If you don't have to - don't put any animal through a unnecessary dental cleaning when good raw bones do the exact same thing. Try it an see what you think. But, if you do put them through a cleaning use activated charcoal in their food later to get the anesthesia out of their system. Good rule for humans as well. You can buy it at your local drug store in the gas section - just break it down to put into food.