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Broken teeth and chew safety
The bend test
Before any chew goes in the toy box: press it, bend it, push a thumbnail into it. A safe chew yields - rubber that flexes, dental chews with some softness. A chew that is rock-hard passes no dental benefit worth the fracture risk, because the hardest objects in the house (antlers, weight-bearing bones, hooves, hard nylon, ice cubes) are the usual fracture culprits - the US FDA also lists bones among the potentially dangerous items for pets.
Spotting a fracture
Breaks range from a chipped corner to a slab fracture shearing off the side of a big cheek tooth. What you may see: a tooth with a flat or jagged edge, a pink or dark dot in the center of the break (that is pulp - the nerve and blood supply), a dog who suddenly chews on one side or drops a favorite hard toy, or facial swelling under the eye when a root abscesses. Some dogs show nothing at all - one more reason regular oral exams matter.
Why "it doesn't seem to bother them" is not the end of it
A fracture with exposed pulp is painful in ways dogs hide, and it lets bacteria straight into the root, where infection can abscess into the jaw or face. Leaving an exposed-pulp fracture untreated is not a good option: the choices are extraction, or root canal with a veterinary dentist for teeth worth saving. A clean enamel chip with no pulp exposure is the one case where monitoring may be reasonable - your vet's call after a look.
Chewing that cleans instead of breaks
Chewing is good for teeth when the chew is right: VOHC-sealed dental chews sized to your dog's weight, supervised, with real give. VOHC's own guidance on chews is sizing plus supervision to cut obstruction risk. Pair that with the VOHC product guide and skip the hard stuff entirely - the teeth you save are the big carnassials doing all the work.