Like Jennie, I agree that a raw 'meaty' bone should remove any plaque on your dogs teeth. It is not to action of chewing on the bone that cleans the teeth, but rather the ripping of the meat off the bone. Your dog is resource guarding with her bone. I would keep her in the cage when she has a bone. Does she resouce guard anything else - food, toys etc?

My dog was snarling at my Chi in that pic. The Chi was sitting next to me, eyeing those bones, and snarling. Poor Caleb had waited for me to get the perfect shot before I let him eat them. So, I didn't think it was out-of-line for the poor guy to get a little cranky when he'd been sitting there for 10-15 mins, not allowed to touch them...and the Chi waltzes up and wants to run off with them, in typical Chi fashion.

I've had a few dogs who got like that over bones; sometimes they seem to do it more when they don't get a lot of raw bones, so getting them is so special that they're quite possessive. I don't really care, to be honest, if mine is hostile while in his crate (which he is, bone or not). However, keep in mind that I don't have children, and my dog only does this to people other than me-he has never displayed any aggression/possession issues to me at all. I keep the dogs separated with food and bones at all times. One eats in the garage one day, one outside, one in the crate, one in the kitchen, etc. I haven't tried to correct this guarding behavior in particular. I do have dominance issues w/him, but I think I've gotten him to a pretty manageable level at this point, and whatever's not quite perfect is liveable at least.

I would still switch her to a grain-free kibble; I really don't see much tartar in dogs fed these foods. I notice w/my own, that their teeth may not be as startling white as while on raw exclusively, but that there's still no tartar at all. There are a lot of threads about grain-free kibble; I'd look into one and see if that doesn't help your problem, since you can't feed raw at the moment.

Sorry for the book! Hope I've answered your question.