Issue with raw bones. - Page 1

Hi,

I've started slowly introducing my 12 month Mal to raw food.  The issue however is with the bones.  She will clean a large beef bone of any outside meat and then to get at the marrow inside, she will bite off half inch chunks of bone at the edges.  She of course swallows the bone chunks, and during the night she will throw up the bone chunks.
I don't suspect that this is normal, so is there an issue with feeding bones?  Most of the websites advocating raw food are promoting raw bones to the dogs, but no one mentions anything about the dogs later vomiting them up.  Our dog lives with us in the house, so we either need to stop giving her bones (which we did) or need to try something else.

Any suggestions?
Thanks,

 Do not feed weight bearing bones. They can injure teeth...although frankly I do give weight bearing pork bones because they have a way of becoming sort of granular bits rather than shards. I give chicken and turkey legs too.

I give my dogs beef marrow bones, but I remove the bone after the marrow is cleaned out.  My male will break off some pieces, but once he starts doing this I remove the bone.  I do give chicken quarters as a part of their meal.  The dogs have no issues with the raw chicken bones. 

Jim

 By the way, ChrisZ, you don't have to need to introduce it slowly. Overnight has worked fine with every rescue that's been through here!

I, in the past, have had the same issue with hooves.  I'd heard about the benefits with teeth and tried, but after the muck I had to clean up, no more.  I give mine shanks and he cleans the meat, part of the marrow and then tosses them and plays with them.  He's ground the ends but, in general, does not consume the bone.  I guess it depends on the dog.

Chris, one of my dogs is this way - he, too, vomits up the chunks of bone he swallows.  i've been told by a vet I trust that this is really asking for trouble with this dog, and I believe her.  The other dogs don't seem to have this problem, just this one dog will vomit up these bits of bone.   So he doesn't get bones anymore. 

You can switch to a commercial raw diet like K9 Kraving.   That will give you the best of both worlds.

Some dogs are vigorous chewers and can, in fact, break off big chunks easily. Bones, of course, should never have been cooked or frozen before giving as this actually will promote the breakage of the bone. This vomiting up of bone chunks is very common in GSDs. It can also prove to be very dangerous as sharp bone fragments can lacerate the gut. Teeth can be injured too. The solution is simple. If you give a dog a marrow bone, make sure it originates from the middle of the femur. Also make certain that you carefully supervise the dog while he/she has the bone. When you see that the chewing is about to destroy and break bone chips/chunks, take it away and immediately so. Make sure it is securely place in trash where the dog cannot get to it. I also suggest that one look carefully at the issue of the marrow. Many dogs will get it all and then have loose stool or frank diarrhea from it. So generally, if I give such a bone, I scoop out some or all of it, depending on the dog. I think that many people who advocate raw put ground bone in, but you better check with them about that. I know that bone is essential in such diets, but I don't feed raw.

You can certainly allow the dog to have the bones to chew on, but do be careful with them. And yes, messes become unpleasant to always be cleaning up.

Good luck.

 Obedience Star,

In my experiments and experience, freezing or cooking makes bones more brittle. So if you use those bones, just watch carefully for breakage and then discard. You can probably use them if you are careful. I also have access to a man who is a butcher for some of the ranchers out east. I was picking up his bones and I thought that would be great because I did not have to pay for them. He had often frozen them, and of course, for me to keep them fresh I too had to freeze them. But then I noted how quickly the frozen ones were breaking compared to one that had not been frozen. Of course, cooking a bone makes it breakable too. So just be careful and remember that you must closely supervise the dog. Raw and fresh is best, but that is becoming very difficult to find now. All our store meats in my area have been processed elsewhere and if there are marrow bones available (soup bones they are called here), they come in and have been frozen. Refreezing probably makes them even more brittle.