Canine Domestication - Dogs are NOT Wolves - Page 2

When I volunteered for the vet, I saw this one dog stay in the hospital for about a week while a chunk of bone worked its way through the bowel with the help of lots of laxitives. The dog managed to avoid surgery, but with all the x-rays etc. the bill was over $1,000. And this was in 1970!

Sorry, I don't want to risk that!

Slam, you have the right idea. It pays to be cautious with bones! Ask any vet how many dogs they've treated for impactions, broken teeth, or bone splinters stuck in the teeth or throat.

I give my dogs those kinds of bone ttoo, Slam... I always sit out there and keep an eye on them though. My GSD will chew at them for awhile and then get bored with picking the marrow/meat out/off. Our little mutt though is funny, - in the same amount of time it takes her to chew and get bored (about half an hour-an hour), he will have picked his completely clean - in and out, and will leave the bone without so much as a scratch on it. I guess those snaggle-teeth come in handy for something after all!

Awesome post! I truly appreciate your good insight about this topic.

Vonissk, I question whether that bone was really cooked. The cheapest way to add smoked flavouring to a bone is to dip it in sodium nitrite (artificial smoke flavouring that is often used in processed meats.)

Anyway, anyone who feeds raw knows that too much bone can cause such severe constipation that the dog becomes impacted and unable to poop. I really don't think the dog's digestive system cares whether the bone is raw or cooked: too much bone is going to bung things up regardless!

I think the type of cooking a bone receives is important. Boiling/steaming softens bones. Chicken carcasses can actually be liquefied using steam. They are then put through a seive or grinder to produce chicken meal for pet food!

Roasting a bone over a fire, OTOH, would dry it out and make it harder and more likely to splinter. Early humans were hunter-gatherers, and this was how they cooked meat. Cookiing things in pots didn't come along until much later, after humans learned how to grow crops and work metal to make fireproof containers.

So, early canines ate cooked bones (as well as raw) and somehow survived!

Steamed chicken bones get soft, but chickens nowadays are butchered before nine weeks old. The bones are not fully formed at that age and are soft already. Take a non- genetically engineered chicken, that is two or three years old, pasture raised, and the bones splinter, cooked or not. You can use poultry shears and cut a raw back from commercially grown chicken through the spine. That is not possible with back bone of an adult normal chicken raised naturally. Cooked bones splinter and I think the big leg bones at TS and other stores that sell them, are fully cooked. They do splinter and I quit using them years ago because of that. Raw long bones also splinter, as do ribs from adult animals. If you're feeding raw bones, it's best to feed from very young animals, weanling age, before the bones are fully hardened.

Very good points, Joan! Thank you!

Yes, the bones from most store-bought chickens are very soft because the animals are young. One of my dogs seemed to be in a lot of pain the day after scarfing down chicken wing bones someone had thrown out in a local park. The vet x-rayed her, and the bones had vanished already, likely dissolved by the acid in her stomach. However, her spine was an absolute mess (ankylosing spondylitis, complicated by a bacterial infection) and I wound up having to euthanize her about a year later. :(

When I butcher weanling goats, after the meat for human consumption is removed, I can grind the entire carcass; back bone, neck, ribs, legs, pelvis for the dogs. The bones are so soft, I don't need a saw to cut them for the grinder. A cleaver will do the job. Tripe, and organ meat is ground up in the mix. The dogs digest this mix with no problem and no worry about them choking. Also, it's easier to divvy up the mix.

I can cut through the chicken back with a small paring knife, as well as separate the leg from the thigh. I have even done it with my bare hands! LOL

That's what I mean. Those are baby chickens that are genetically programed to grow so fast, that some of the legs are bent due to the weight of the chick growing too fast. The hatcheries even warn you that they need to be 'processed' by the time they are nine weeks old or they will drop dead. They die of heart attack because the heart can't keep up with the body size.

People choke on bones and food, maybe I should stop eating anything with bones on it!  I would venture to say more dogs choke on rawhide or get impactions from that than raw chicken bones. I do not give any rawhide to my dogs.  Dogs can and do bloat on kibble as well.  I'm stick with my raw feeding and raw bones are a vital part of that diet.  Nutritionally speaking carbohydrates offer little value to dogs but are cheap to put into dog, hence cutting costs and increasing profits for dog food manufacturers.  Just because dog's "tolerate" it better doesn't mean it is good for them.