Went to dinner tonight with coworkers and 2 of us had bone in ribeyes. I’ve brought the bones home to my Beagles who are immensely happy at the moment. But now I hear real crunching as they tear into the bones. Should I take them away or is this natural predator behavior?
I was always told that cooked bones aren’t good for dogs because they splinter into sharp shards, which can be dangerous when swallowed. Raw bones aren’t as sharp, so aren’t dangerous.
I don’t give my dog any cooked bones.
Here’s some info from the AKC. http://classic.akc.org/press_center/akc_syndicate/ask_AKC/0206.cfm
Scroll down.
I wouldn’t worry about it, but I would sort of monitor for any unusual behavior (like not pooping).
I once dogsat my boss’s dog, who was a great Pyrenees mix, and this dog went through my back yard and ate–not just chewed on, ate–every single bone my dog (husky/chow mix) had collected for the last six months. Just sat there and chomped them right down. Didn’t hurt her, but it worried me (I was polishing up my resume for awhile there).
I have heard that thing about cooked bones, too. But my dog and I have this deal where if I get steak, he gets a bone, and it’s worked out fine so far.
Take them away now.
What ITD said. I’ve fed raw to multiple dogs since 1999, but cooked bones can kill because they’re not broken in dog’s gut nearly as efficiently.
If they’re managing to chew the bones into pieces, then take them away. Bone shards can not only cause an obstruction, they can perforate the digestive tract. Cooked bones are brittle, round bones can get stuck on the jaw, small/broken/chewed bones can cause problems. I usually recommend against bones in general just because it’s easier to say “no bones” than it is to try and qualify what might work for whatever dog a person has. Huge bones the dog can’t possibly break pieces off of or chew up are the only ones that might work.
Bones away, mostly intact.
I fed my dogs all the bones we had left over. Chicken, beef, pork. I was also the poop picker upper and never saw bones in the poop. Beagles and other hounds seem to do fine on bones.
Here’s a pic of the Beagles if you want to see them: http://i949.photobucket.com/albums/ad332/frazebphotobucket/cdffa9d283e9ea692fee65c467766da0.jpg
Moved Cafe Society --> IMHO.
Okay, first off–cute doggies! I love beagles.
Second: I was probably wrong. Just got an email linking to an article that says you should never never ever give dogs cooked bones of any kind, ever.
Well, okay. I will stop recommending it, even though I have been giving dogs bones for decades with no problems. I don’t know how I will explain this to my dog.
Thanks! When I took the bones away they were completely picked clean but the bulk was still intact. This morning they kept trying to get into the trash can to pull them out so they must have been pretty good! But then again, everything in the trash can is pretty good by their standards!
I remember when I was a kid though that Mom would give our dog a bone every once in a while from something she cooked. Was a huge treat! But she was too small a dog to chew the bones up so I never knew just how dangerous that could be.
My lab once swallowed an entire rotisserie chicken whole. (while my back was turned)
I have no idea how he did this, and I have no idea how this didn’t wreak havoc on his digestive tract. He didn’t even show any signs of discomfort afterwords.
Why of course, we want to see them !
They are beautiful hounds, indeed.
It was short rib bones that really scared me with my beagles (now numbering 3). The big male took his outside and when I went out to check I found he’d reduced the bones to splinters. LOTS of splinters. I managed to get it all away from him and apparently what he’d already consumed didn’t trouble him. Another bullet dodged.
I buy the frozen uncooked beef bones for them and they love 'em. No more of the cooked variety.
My dog Eightball did this to 8 chicken leg/thigh quarters. The plate was on the counter by the very hard to reach corner of the wall - and the only reason we know what happened is the bbq sauce she left on the rug.
It took her less than 10 minutes. We were NOT happy. But she didn’t seem to have any problem with it.
My current dog, Baron, can polish off just about anything in no time flat. I know I’ve told the story where he consumed one entire pound of Velveeta before we knew what happened. It didn’t phase him one bit.
I am NOT a fan of cooked (in my extensive experience raw is fine if you are sensible about it) bones of any sort for dogs and have quite a few cautionary anecdotes I could share, but here’s one.
Impaction and associated complications can crop up long after the actual ingestion I know lots of show/working/sporting dog people and feeding raw is not uncommon with us folks that do. However, I know someone who never feeds anything but kibble and has Malamutes she shows (her dogs have been shown at Westminster), works them, does dog-sledding with and so on. She is insanely careful about her dogs’ environment and feeding regimen and monitors everything really carefully.
So during a family BBQ, someone relaxed their guard and one of her dogs made off with a small rack of cooked pork ribs and chowed down. She panicked, talked to her vet, knew what to watch out for, and when the dog was acting normally, pooping normally and all that after a few days, she figured no harm done. About a month later, the dog started acting very sluggish and didn’t want to eat. Off to the vet. There was a solid kielbasa-sized plug of the bone chips in the dog’s (I think) lower intestine and very gradually, other food that hadn’t been able to pass through had been backing up. The end result was an extremely expensive surgery and the vet gave my friend the big plug of bone.
OK, one more cautionary tale: Almost 30 years ago we had neighbors who gave their dog (a BC) cooked bones regularly, with no ill effects. They probably thought they were being neighborly when they gave my Rottweiler a cooked chicken carcass. But it killed him. Despite surgery to remove a large portion of his chicken-bone perforated intestines, and several days on IV antibiotics and fluids, he died of a systemic infection.
It is simply not a risk I will take and I don’t recommend it!
Cute dogs!! Cooked bones, as others have said will splinter and can be a big problem. Raw bones can be a bacterial problem. They sell sterile raw bones.
He was probably like, “Listen, you trumped up monkey, I’m a fucking wolf. THIS IS WHAT WE DO.”
When I was young, we had a dachshund and an Airedale. The dachshund once got a rib bone stuck in the back of his mouth – between the upper left and upper right molars.
The vet extracted it easily, but with this advice: NEVER give dogs bones. They just aren’t good for them. Besides all the above-discussed problems, there’s this: Chewing on bones wears their teeth down. There is (or was) this popular myth that dogs “sharpen” their teeth by chewing bones. The vet pointed out to us that this is transparently nonsense. Sharpen their teeth by chewing bones??? How’s that supposed to work?
The Airedale once ate a box of crayons, and produced rainbow poop for several days.
That’s nothing. Our border collie once ate a tube of glitter.