There are as many dog bones for dogs to eat, as there are opinions about them.
As a rule, most vets discourage them. They site things like splintering or choking potential for dogs. But this hasn’t always been the way. And it should be noted that vets mostly sell large corporation bags of grain masquerading as dog food. Vets also spend a tiny fraction of their course time learning about nutrition, and again, are guided mostly by the commercial enterprises that sponsor them.
Commercial dog food makes up to 20% of a vet’s revenue, and many brands of dog food has been found to be meddled with to decrease the satiety nature of the food so that dogs never can get enough of it to eat. They over eat, and you have to buy more, and fat dogs tend to have more health concerns than thinner healthy dogs. It’s a perfect commercial agreement.
But let’s consider three major components of dog bones that they don’t tell you.
- what function bones serve
- what types of bones and what types of drying are there
- safety eating
Function use of dog bone dog treats.
Bones can provide a very useful component of nutrients for dogs. A true raw feeder will mostly fee animal products, NOT vegetable matter.
In that case the bones nutritionally provide equal amounts of calcium and phosphorous when eaten, plus marrow and some vitamins. But it’s also the ratio of 1:1 Ca:K that health experts say dogs should have.
Raw feeders recommend about 5-10 % of the dog’s calories should come from bones. That leaves ample room to get the very important animal-based protein that is very bioavailable for dogs.
Types of dog bone dog treats
Firstly there is raw versus cooked. This has a large baring on the safety aspect of the Healthy natural Dog Bone Chews and we will discuss that below. But mostly people say that a dog bone dog treat should be matched to the dog.
If you are after ‘occupying ‘the dog, then a big dog gets a big bone right? But what happens if that big dog can still crack the bone open and get the marrow? That is ok too, if the dog knows to chew the bone pieces down into small pieces before swallowing, and the bone isn’t ripped into small sharp pieces.
If you have a big dog that you actually just want to have the primal function of eating bones, without taking a long time, then you can provide smaller bones like some animal rib bones. As long as the bones are not too small that they also splinter or get caught in the dog’s throat.
Small and mid-sized dogs are another case. If the dog is smaller, but has a very strong jaw like a pit bull or an English staffy. They will still be able to break smaller clod bones down into shards, and they might not chew them enough for them to be safe.
If a dog is a careful eater, and knows that they can’t break into the bone, they are often satisfied by just getting the meat between the ribs in rib bone dog treats. I have personally seen a dog painstakingly rip the bones apart, and just eat the meat off them so that they are clean – not even trying to chew the bone.
Dog bone SAFETY
Even if you buy bones from a butcher and the bones are freshly removed from a carcass. It is still likely to contain bacteria. This is why many dog owners preferred oven cooked or smoked bones. As long as the bones still have some moisture, they are not going to be brittle.
Similarly air dried, or freeze-dried bones can often have an unacceptable level of bacteria on them. I am a raw feeder advocate, but you have to know how good your dog’s immune system is. If they are young, old or sick, they won’t have a lot of defence against bad bacteria and can get very sick quickly.
HARNESS OF THE BONE – Leg bones are not for every dog, this is why many experts, who are not vets, but raw feeders, will sometimes still say NOT to use LEG bones or load bearing bones with their dogs. Load bearing bones are the hardest you will find – and the hardest are load bearing wild animals that run on those legs are lot more than a farmed animal will.
If you don’t trust your dog not to try to chew all of the bone into a paste, then maybe consider smaller softer bones for them. NOT tiny bones – we don’t recommend chicken wings. But we do recommend chicken necks cooked. They have much safer rounder bones to munch on
CONCLUSIONS
There can be lots of trial and error in getting the right bones for your dog to enjoy and eat safety. We always recommend consulting a vet first, or at least spending the first few times at home with them, perhaps on the weekend and watch how they eat the bone.
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