My dog loves rawhide bones. She wants one every day and twice if I would let her. She is an agressive chewer who is only a year old, so needless to say, if she doesn’t have a rawhide bone to chew on she has a tendency of trying to eat other stuff, like wood, plastic, carpet.
I know someone will come in to say she is bored, but not really. She is rarely left alone and has a league of adoring servants, uhm humans.
Can a dog eat too many rawhide bones? What are the problems of rawhide “overdose”.
Yes and no.
Dogs like to chew. It’s fun to them. If your dog likes rawhide (and gets regular exercise and good food and all that stuff) let her knock herself out.
But…
Rawhide is cow skin. Yup, it is. No real nutrition there. If your dog’s tummy is full of rawhide, she won’t be hungry. She’ll get scurvey and rickets and die. (Not really, but she’ll probably poot to kill ya.)
If she’s a real tough chewer and breaks off hunks of rawhide before they are all soggy and gooey, this could be bad. Punctured throat, intestinal blockages, it could be way bad.
So, you’re probably best limiting her rawhide. You can get her other toys though. The pressed nylon bones (Nylabone) are good for hard chewers. Not the gummy kind though. (Lucy’s all of 11 pounds and she needs “Wolf” size, she chews so hard.) The rope bones are good too.
-Rue.
My mom’s dog has a rather sensative stomach, when he was about 9 months old they found that they had to limit his intake of them, or he would regurgitate everywhere constantly.
There is also the risk of salmonella assocsiated with these products http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/corpaffr/recarapp/19991119be.shtml
I should also point out that the salmonella is only harmful to people, not to the dogs.
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[Edited by bibliophage on 12-03-2001 at 08:03 PM]
My Jack Russel Sharik LOVES rawhides.
Every other morning when they all run to the fence to see me off to work (I have two other dogs besides Sharik). I toss each a rawhide chew if avalible.
I have since found out the furry bastard (sharik) loves to hoard Rawhides under the deck where only he can fit. He hides his rawhide then sneaks out and steals the other dogs rawhides.
He is also forgetful and might build up 5 or six chews before he makes a day of pigging out. When I first noticed the off white dog poop out back my neighbour (who is home alot) informed me of Fuz faces habit of hoarding and then feasting on the rawhide.
Aint killed the fuzzy guy yet.
If he keeps up that damn barking THAT might get him killed by the neighbours. But not the rawhide.
We don’t give Spot the Wonderpup rawhides anymore. He eats them too fast. If they are consumed too fast they can cause intestinal blockages. The incident that put us off of rawhides for him was the time that he halfway pooped out a long piece of undigested rawhide. The other half was still in his butt and I had to yank it out. Ewww!
We give him Nylabones, and other chew-toys made by that company. He seems very satisfied.
Our Newfoundlands have a huge amount of bite pressure, so we have to be very careful what we give them to chew. These so-called “indestructible” chews are anything but.
They love rawhides, but the two with sensitive digestive systems get really bad poops if they eat too much of them, and it’s gross. Big dog = big bad poop. They will also go through an 8" retriever roll in a couple of hours if we let them.
Also, never give a big dog (or maybe any dog) those rawhides with the knots at each end. The dog can get the know off pretty easily, then choke on it whole and die. Retriever rolls work better, and we once had a Labrador who would unroll them for fun.
We have just found a new thing for Angus to chew, as the feed place. I will try to find the brand name, it’s a rawhide-type thing only harder, so it lasts a lot longer with no splintering.
There is something that’s safer than rawhide. They are called Macho Stix, and are made out of, eh, the part of a bull that a cow doesn’t have. Sorry, but it’s true. My friends with aggressive chewing dogs say the dogs love them, and they last longer than rawhide.
Have you tried the:
–Kong
–Goodie Ship
–Hercules
–Galileo?
Spot has the first 3 and hasn’t made a dent in 'em. The Galileo is supposed to be even stronger than the Hercules.
p.s. I just looove newfies!!
This is one of the major concerns that pet owners should have about rawhide chews. My own vet denounces the rawhide squares as especially dangerous. These are most likely to be ingested in a partially chewed state. The squares are an ideal size for obstructing the gut which can kill an animal. I hadn’t heard of problems with the knotted end of the larger chews but that too makes sense since they are eminently suited as gob-stoppers.
I give my mutt the twisted sticks of rawhide. He goes through them a bit quicker than the big honking pieces but I don’t have to worry about giving him the old doggie Heimlich manuever or worse.
Ha! Lucy just loves her Galileo bone. (The big bone thing by Nylabone with the lump on the side) We had to take it away from her because Katcha liked to chuck it around the living room. The thing weighs a ton and here’s the kid winging it around the room.
She also has the slightly larger than fist sized Kong toy too.
Other fun things for your dog to chew on:
Pig’s ears
&
Cow hooves
Fun, but gross.
-Rue. (who also wants a Newfie)
You could also try cow’s ears. My dog, Snoopy, loves these things. They’re pretty tough to chew on though. I think you can get lamb’s ears for smaller/older dogs and puppies–same chewing fun, just not as tough.
I’ve also heard of “moo tubes”–cow tracheas basted in their own juices–but I’ve never bought one for Snoopy to try.
Hmmm… Spot chewed through the ears as fast as he chewed through rawhide. YMMV, of course.
Rue: Ever fill the Kong with peanut butter? Keeps Spot occupied for hours…