Description
Dental chews are the one corner of the treat aisle where the shape is doing the work rather than the recipe. Blue Buffalo Dental Chews are moulded with what the manufacturer states is 50 ridges and grooves, flavoured with chicken and spearmint, and sold here in the small size: an 11.3 oz bag containing 28 chews under model number 187. Amazon files them under Cookies, Biscuits and Snacks, a human food category name applied to a pet product. These are dog treats.
Twenty eight chews at the stated rate of one per day is a four week supply, which the manufacturer says outright. That is a deliberate design: a dental chew only does anything if it is given consistently, so the pack is sized to a month rather than to a price point.
Size selection is the first decision, not the second
The manufacturer states this small size is intended for dogs from 5 lb up to 20 lb, and that choosing the right size matters. It does, and for two reasons. A chew that is too small for the dog gets swallowed rather than chewed, which removes the entire mechanical benefit and introduces a choking risk. A chew that is too large is hard work for a small jaw and may simply be abandoned.
Blue Buffalo sells the same product in medium and large, so getting this wrong is avoidable. If your dog sits near a size boundary, the safer error is the larger chew, because a chew that takes longer to get through is doing more scraping and is less swallowable. That is a general principle rather than manufacturer guidance, and the manufacturer's own weight guide should come first.
How far the dental claim actually goes
The claim being made is that 50 ridges and grooves promote healthy teeth and gums by eliminating plaque and tartar build up during chewing, and that spearmint freshens breath. The mechanism is real and uncontroversial: a firm textured surface dragged across a tooth disturbs soft plaque, and that is what every dental chew on the market is built around.
What the listing does not do is publish a tested reduction, a study, a protocol or an accepting veterinary body. There is a survey claim on the page stating that four out of five pet parents prefer these over their current dental treat, described as a survey of dog parents conducted by Blue Buffalo in March 2024. That is a preference survey run by the manufacturer, not a clinical result about teeth, and it should be read as exactly that. No chew replaces brushing, and no chew addresses tartar that has already hardened onto the tooth, which is a scaling job for a vet.
If dental care is the actual objective rather than a nice side effect, it is worth comparing this against products sold specifically for the purpose, such as the Virbac Veggiedent tartar chew or the Ark Naturals brushless chew, and the wider dental care section sets them side by side.
What is in it, and what the calorie line reveals
The manufacturer states the chews contain no meat or bone meal, no artificial flavours or preservatives, and no corn, wheat or soy, and that chicken is the flavour base. The recipe is described as developed with veterinary guidance, which is a statement about the process rather than about a result.
The feeding directions contain a detail worth reading twice. They instruct owners to reduce the dog's main meal by 37 calories for each chew fed, but that figure is given for the medium size chew, on a listing selling the small size. No calorie figure for the small chew is published anywhere on this page. The instruction is right in principle, a daily chew is a daily calorie load and the meal should come down to match, but the number needed to act on it is missing for the product actually being sold. That is a real gap on a treat aimed at daily use.
What the listing does not establish
No calorie count for the small chew, as above. No guaranteed analysis, so protein and fat percentages are unstated. No full ingredient panel, only the exclusion list, so an owner avoiding a specific ingredient can check what is absent but not what is present. No chew dimension, so the size relative to a specific dog cannot be judged before opening the bag.
The recorded dimensions are the usual importer noise: package dimensions of 9.21 by 6.5 by 2.83 inches and item dimensions of 3 by 6.6 by 9.63 inches, both of which describe a bag rather than a chew. There is also no statement of whether the bag reseals, and no shelf life, which for a 28 day supply is a fair question.
Safety and daily use
A daily chew is a routine, and routines are where the small mistakes accumulate. The dog gets one from you in the morning and one from someone else in the evening, and by the end of a month a small dog has taken on roughly twice the intended calorie load from a product whose calorie figure is not even published for this size. Agree who gives it and when, and keep the bag somewhere that makes casual handing out inconvenient.
Supervise. A dental chew is worked on rather than eaten quickly, and the last inch is the part that gets swallowed whole. Take the stub away. Keep water available. Introduce the chew over a few days rather than starting at one per day immediately, because a new daily item in a small dog's diet is a meaningful change to it.
These are treats, not a diet and not a medicine. If a dog has visible tartar, sore gums, bad breath that has changed suddenly, or is dropping food, that is a veterinary appointment and not a chew purchase. For a puppy, the sizing and the daily calorie load are different questions again, and the puppy specific dental treats we cover are the more suitable starting point.
Who it suits
This suits an owner of a 5 to 20 lb dog who wants a daily dental routine that the dog will actually cooperate with, and who accepts that a chew is a supplement to brushing rather than a replacement for it. It suits households avoiding corn, wheat, soy and artificial preservatives. And the 28 count pack suits anyone who would rather buy a month at a time than a handful.
It does not suit a dog outside the stated weight band without switching to the correct size. It does not suit an owner who needs a calorie figure to manage a strict weight plan, because the small chew's figure is not published. It does not suit a dog with an existing dental problem, which needs a vet. And it does not suit a household expecting a chew to occupy a dog, because it is a short daily item rather than a long one. The rest of the treats and biscuits shelf covers that job better.
