“I don’t have to worry that a Veggie Bone might hurt her.” Actually, ** Lissa** you should worry quite a lot. Veggie treats will hurt your dog. High vegetable diets and veggie treats cause bowel obstructions and other serious problems in dogs. As a Vet in a town like Berkeley or Boulder.
That’s strange. My vet told me the exact opposite. She specifically recommended raw baby carrots as great treats. My dog has been eating them for seven years, and is as healthy and active as a pup.
My vet told me that a varied diet is actually good for the dog-- that they don’t always get all of the vitamins and nutrients that they need from dog food. A human could live on enriched bread alone, but wouldn’t be as healthy as one who eats vegetables and meats as well. The way she put it is that dogs in the wild get vegetation from the stomachs of their pray and from the occasional nibble on greenery. Domestic dogs’ food is often made of just animal products with added vitamins, some of which the dog cannot digest properly, and just get passed through the system. (Not to mention the nastiness and chemicals that are in commercial dog food-- but that’s another thread.)
She did tell me to avoid bones, just because of the potential for intestinal punctures and bowel obstructions, but that if the dog accidently got ahold of one, not to panic unless I saw she was having problems.
As for the compressed veggie bones, she only gets one of them about once a month, if that. They’re designed to completely disolve in the dog’s stomach. (I actually tested this with a glass of water. It melted away.)