So, my family has a dog, a dog of some indeterminate breed (we used to think she was a german shepherd, then an Akita, then an Alaskan Marmite, finally we admitted we didn’t have a clue and have dubbed her to be a “White Dog”), about “medium” sized (you know, dog sized. She’s not a rodent, not a small horse.)
Anyhow, whenever we have pork or steak, when we’re done, we save most of the bones and give one to her to have. She’ll take it in her mouth, trot out into the back yard, and then CRUNCH and now she’s got two bones and some bits.
Obviously, this gives me a moment of pause to consider how impressively strong her jaws must be to pull this off (not to mention to appreciate that she almost never ever bites or snaps, and tends to be super gentle, if super hyper).
I’m curious, would this work with a raw bone, or does the process of cooking in the oven or over a grill weaken the bones significantly?
Cooking the bones is supposed to make them harder and tougher. People who make their own dog food use raw bones because they’re supposed to be softer and less likely to splinter into sharp pieces or to crack the dog’s teeth.
Cooking bones does make them brittle. We feed our dogs raw meat, and they will eventually gnaw through the bones, but they don’t snap and shatter like cooked ones.
Cooked bone is much more brittle. I’ve always been told not to give cooked bones to pets, because they are more likely to break into shards which could cause choking.
Just let me clarify this, and then repeat it very loudly:
[SIZE=“3”]Do *not *to give cooked bones to pets, because they are likely to break into shards which could cause a very slow, very painful death.[/SIZE]. They aso become indigestible and cause the animal distress when they defecate.
Despite giving this advice out to every customer, my vet still sees about a case a month of a dog or cat with a perforated gut due to eating cooked bones.
Bones are basically a calcium crystal structure built over a mesh of protein and kept semi-pliable by oils. Cooking the bone denatures the protein and removes the oil. You end up with a brittle calcium structure that breaks into very sharp shards when chewed and that become almost impossible to digest.
Please, unless you really hate your pet, don’t give it cooked bones. In fact, even if you really do hate your pet, don’t give it cooked bones. Having a jagged bone splinter puncture your guts from the inside and kill you over a period of several days is a really horrible way to die. If you hate your pet that much, just shoot it.
And to answer the question, if the dog can do that to a raw bone then she will do it to cooked bone twice that size. Bones get harder with cooking, not softer.
I’ll second the warning to not give cooked bones. A friend gave a pork steak bone to his Lab. She promptly swallowed it whole. A trip to the vet and $500 dollars later they had the bone back.
So I guess what I’m saying is don’t give them smallish bones. :smack:
The only bone I’d consider giving a dog would be a beef rib or shank. Nothing in the pork, lamb or poultry world is tough enough, even if we’re talking about a small dog.
But even then… I watch them carefully while they have it. Any sign that they are able to break or even fracture it and I’d take it away. I would also take it away when I had to go off and do something else.
As everyone has said, you should avoid the cooked bones, they can be dangerous.
I feed my three dogs and two cats entirely on raw animal parts. They crunch up and swallow many different types and sizes of bones every day. I don’t give them anything big enough (proportionately) that I worry about their teeth being harmed.
I have a 70-lb German Shepherd mix and he can handle some pretty big bones. He could probably even crack a huge weight-bearing bone like a cow’s leg, but I don’t give them to him. He does get turkey parts, lamb shanks, different types of pork bone, cow ribs… all raw of course.
I’ve never had a single issue with them eating whole bones in 5 years, from puppies and kittens to my oldest dog who is 13 now. And they have zero other health problems, too. It’s amazing for their whole system.
And they have zero other health problems, too. It’s amazing for their whole system.