I feel terrible and know that it only took a minute for it to happen....so want to alert those that may not know about it. We were going to have pork chops last night and I wanted to cut the meat away from the bone. Started cooking the meaty part and left the bones on the cutting board. Turned to go to the laundry which is at the end of the kitchen....took clothes out of washing machine and into the dryer....went back to the range to check on my boneless pork chops and the bones were GONE......Cooper had grabbed them,chewed them and swallowed them!!! I immediately went on-line to see what this meant for my pup and the news was not good. LUCKILY, he threw up the bones early this morning....so I feel so much better BUT never, never, never feed a dog any bones other than large cow bones.....and definitely not cooked bones. I know that some Forum members DO give their pups raw chicken and chicken bones so that seems to be OK....but definitely NOT pork bones! I am always so careful with foods that are damaging to dogs (grapes, onion, etc) but, there you go....one minute and a disaster can happen.
I would completely disagree - large cow bones can easily break a dog's tooth. Whereas raw, small pork bones, like ribs, are fine. I always freeze any raw pork that the dogs are going to eat for a couple of weeks to kill any of those nasty worms that may be lurking, but I wouldn't hesitate to feed them. Never cooked, obviously.
Fiona, what I had read was that the pork bones (raw) break into shards.....and can stick in the dogs intestines. I feel better now that you say you DO feed your dogs raw pork bones. I was so worried after I read that on-line. So now I will toss the cow bones out!!! I bought the ones that have marrow inside!!! Sometimes I wonder how Cooper stays alive with me not knowing what I'm doing!!! Poor guy! Thanks, you have made me sigh with relief!!!
Harley has the occasional pork rib and hasn't ever had any problems either. I think the Internet can be our worst enemy sometimes!
I feel like that at least once a day! Should I have given him that? Perhaps the thing I gave him last week caused this thing this week? Should I have let him run around like that? etc etc etc!!!! worry worry worry!! The one thing, though, that I don't worry about are bones. Snowie has been eating raw meaty bones since he was a small pup and nothing untoward has happened. He used to eat pork bones mostly, although we stopped pork altogether because it didn't seem to agree with him. He has regurgitated bones on occasion, to be expected apparently -- and a good sign that anything that's irritating him inside comes straight back up. Fish heads definitely don't agree with him -- they come back up after a few hours (not a nice smell on the carpet! So we stopped those). I do worry about very hard bones, about teeth breaking. So Snowie only gets non-weight-bearing bones to eat. He has on occasion got weight-bearing bones to gnaw on. He's not a hard chewer and always leaves behind the bones that are too hard to chew. I guess if your dog is a very hard and insistent chewer, then you might get problems with cracked teeth. The vet commented that Snowie's teeth are perfect (whew, at least something is healthy in this poor boy's system!) and we put that down to Snowie's diet of raw meat and raw meaty bones. We don't brush his teeth.
Rolo stole a slice of onion that someone had strewn all over the floor near my local park - I think it was a kebab. I was really worried but googled it and the ammount shouldnt hurt him. Keeping a close eye on him!
The dos and don'ts of bones are so confusing! Raw is better than cooked, but my brother in law the vet gives his dogs cooked ribs. I've given Homer oxtail bones which he appears to be fine on and he gets raw chicken wings but not chicken legs.
So you DO give him chicken wings.....see, I would never have thought that those would be OK...but there you go.....is it because the wings are so soft? Cooper is a real chewer and the bones I had given him were with the marrow so must be cow leg I imagine....so weight bearing. Oxtail....never thought of that....will try that. When Cooper threw up the bone(s) there were also little shards of bone and I would have thought those shards could create problems in his tummy or intestines. I understand about bones and breaking their teeth...so don't want that to happen at all! Thank you Jes.
Thanks,MF......some on the Forum give chicken bones, others pork bones, others BONES!!! Guess we each have to make the decision.....I was just worried about the bone shards damaging his tummy,intestines,etc. Cooper is a strong chewer and bones with marrow kept him busy for quite some time....trying to get at the marrow....these were longish bones. Again, thanks for your response.
There is an article about this on The Labrador Site -- I think it's under Feeding Raw Food (not sure of the title). It talks about how shards of bone pass through a dog's gut causing no harm, but the thing is to ensure when feeding bones that they are encased in the meat, ie don't feed the bone without meat. Mind you, Snowie eats chicken bones that are discarded (finds them on our walks), totally clean, devoid of meat. They pass through every time. But I guess he has food in his intestines already from a previous meal. A vet we met last week said that dogs that eat pellets don't produce enough saliva when they eat, they just vacuum the food down. He was a strong proponent of raw feeding, particularly chewing hunks of meat and meaty bones, to get the saliva working to help the food move along.
Even the vets don't agree on bones. One told me to always feed a bone larger than the dog's head so you were sure they couldn't eat it. Another vet told me to not give bones in any way shape or form. A third vet told me that raw meaty bones were fine but avoid anything else. Ella's not much of a chewer so she's actually fine with a large bone as, once all of the "stuff" has been chewed off the outside she tends not to worry too much about it. However, I don't give her these bones as the "stuff" on the outside always makes her vomit. It must be too rich. Also, I know a few dogs that have suffered from pancreatitis from the big marrow bones. We do give Ella raw meaty bones but only to supplement her kibble diet. I feel that I personally don't have the time or expertise to ensure that she's getting the right quantities of each nutrient in a raw diet.
I would think if Snowy is swallowing the cooked chicken bones whole, they wouldn't cause a problem., it's when they chew then into shards that the danger is present. I gave Scooby a cooked ham bone from the pet shop once. I was busy for 15 minutes, and he'd eaten most of the bone. I spent a very nervous 2 days going through his vomit trying to account for the entire bone. Never again! Raw, small & meaty now.
He chews each one very well -- I think he must've had a grandmother who said: chew 32 times before swallowing! He's a very good chewer, even chews a small almond when I give one to him, and also chews his salmon oil capsules! @Emily so true about getting three different opinions if you ask three different vets! I've never understood the one about "feed a big bone". Surely at some point it will become a small bone? I don't see the logic.
It depends on how they chew. We are advised never to give cooked bones, but we do give smoked and sterilised bones. The smoked bones crumble, no shards. They last ours for months. I use the sterilised bones to fill with soaked kibble and freeze, they last ten times as long as a kong. But mine are not powerful chewers - and they just lick out the sterilised bones - always given supervised. Most advice is NO cooked bones and raw bones must be none weight bearing, smaller bones like chicken. ...
I have two dogs both raw fed and given bones. One has been raw fed from birth, the other swopped onto raw at one year old. I have never had any problems feeding bones and never had a bone vomited up. My understanding is that raw fed dogs have a lower ph in their stomach acid compared to kibble fed dogs which allows them to digest bone and stops the compaction which can cause problems. I never give cooked bone and try to feed mostly non weight bearing bone, i.e. Lamb ribs, the sort of bone that is light and airy. I once a week or so give them a large marrow bone and once they have licked all the marrow from the inside they generally lose interest in them. I was fascinated to see puppies at the breeders that were weaned onto raw food and chewing bones. I can totally understand though how difficult it can be to give bones to a kibble fed dog. I must admit before I started with raw I asked at my vets (who support raw feeding) whether they operated on dogs who had problems with bone in their guts. They told me yes they had, but to their knowledge they had never operated on any raw fed dogs and the bones that had cause the trouble were always the cooked bones. I found that quite reassuring.
This bone thing is driving me crazy! Talked to a vet/friend overseas and he says never chicken bones!!! only large animal bones....and NO COOKED BONES. So we all seem to agree on no cooked bones but, as to the rest, it's all over the place. One thing I noticed in the many answers to my thread was that there is a lot of meat on the bones you give your pup. I will try this route and see what happens....Cooper will certainly love getting the meat off the bone!! It is so interesting how diverse answers are re BONES...! Thanks all.
The idea is the bone forms part of the meal. Furthermore if you're following a prey-based diet, where you try to feed your dog the whole animal over the course of a few days (depends on how big the animal is - chicken vs sheep), then the bone forms a significantly smaller proportion of the meal than the meat. Snowie gets a smoked ostrich bone once in a blue moon - we've given him one when we were at a restaurant and needed him occupied. Otherwise he never eats bones outside of meal times. Oh yes - except when he's scavenging!!!! How could I forget that!!
A good place to start could be with some nice, soft, veal brisket. Xena's fed kibble, but on the weekend she gets a nice chunk of veal brisket for breakfast. You'd be surprised at how quickly it goes down. I buy mine from the pet shop because it seems to be different from the brisket you find at the butcher? The pet stuff has soft bones, but the butcher's stuff is hard?
