Hi, Bailey is doing exceptionally well and has settled in brilliantly. Do any of the board members give their puppies any chews ? If so what kind do you give to them ? Bailey is 9 weeks old. He already loves his kongs, but was wondering if we could give him a chew as a change. We wouldn't leave him unsupervised with the chew. What are your thoughts ?
I give my new puppy seawraps (sticks of sweet potato wrapped in fish skin) and sometimes I give her seajerky (knots of fish skin). Now and again, she gets rice chews and very occasionally she has pizzles (beef chews) or dried venison. None of these last her very long, no where near the time a kong would last but she likes them very much. Yesterday I tried a chew toy that is soaked in water and frozen. I thought it was really rubbish. I don't use nylabones, rawhide, antlers or anything like that, I think they are far too hard and I'm just generally dubious about rawhide. Commercial chews like dentastix etc. I think are poor value, don't last very long, and I always suspect are full of junk.
Rice bones are good for little pups. But by 12 weeks old they don't last two minutes. You can get hedgehog/toothbrush shaped sweet potato chews which are good too. The same applies, they don't last long for pups over 12 weeks. Our dogs are allowed smoked bones, sterilised bones, nylabones and rawhide chews. I go easy on the rawhide as it can be high calorie.
They love a sterilised bone filled with soaked kibble and frozen, they last much longer than Kongs - not given unsupervised 'tho.