I grew up with dogs and have had so many puppies come through my life, but it’s been about 10 years since I had a major hand in raising a puppy (and then it was almost all me, since he was my dog). Anyway, a lot of puppy things are, at this point, instinct for me and a few I’d forgotten until my mother or father reminded me when I called, but this one’s a bit more confusing.
I’m now, basically, a full-time puppy nanny for awhile. It’s fun, most of the time, but this baby is having a hard time with chewing things. My roommate bought her a puppy Kong and she had no real interest in that. She later came home with a puppy bacon-flavored Nylabone and a rope toy with some sort of bony objects on it. Apparently the puppy nylabones are softer than the normal ones (but are NOT the gummabones, which I think are pretty useless from past experience).
Well, the puppy loves the bacon-flavored Nylabone (and has no use for the other two in the three pack). So much so that she’s already chewed off the knuckle on one side. She won’t chew the other knuckle, so I’ve had to take away the bone for her own safety. She’s been here almost a week, and hasn’t had that bone the whole time. Four days, tops.
Since she’s already decimated the puppy bone, and really wants to chew on table legs*, shoe strings, her crate, etc, I think she’d do better with an adult nylabone (sized to a toy or mid-sized dog), but I’m worried she’ll chip or break a tooth. Or something else bad. I’m pretty sure when I was growing up the puppies chewed adult Nylabones, but they probably were pre-chewed by the adult dogs in the house. Would that make a difference? She’s a Golden Retriever, if that has a bearing on the answer.
*She doesn’t like Bitter Apple while it’s wet, but doesn’t care about it when it’s dry. She’ll eat anything, more so than most puppies I recall.
Our dog was an adult when she cracked a couple of back teeth, one on each side of her mouth. I can’t prove it was the nylabone, but it was the only thing we could think of that was hard that she was chewing on. We had to get dental work done on her, and took away her nylabones. You’d think they’d be smart enough to not bite so hard they’d break their teeth, but, well, they’re dogs. Of course, Y(dog’s)MMV.
Even if she damages puppy teeth, she’ll grow new teeth eventually. Most nylabones don’t interest puppies because they are too hard for little teeth, not because they are dangerous.
When you get to the teething stage - twist a stinky treat up in a wet washcloth and freeze it. The cold feels good.
I know she’ll get new teeth eventually, but these are the teeth she’s going to have for a bit. She is only eight weeks old. And I don’t think my roommate (the dog’s owner) will be okay with that explanation even if it’s fine. But it’s hard to say. And ZenBeam’s story does make me a little concerned, though my family has used Nylabones for years and all has been fine.
I’ll definitely try that when she’s teething, though. Thanks!
I used to work for Nylabone. The most common errors dog owners make are buying bones that are too small, or too soft for their dogs. Generally speaking, if a toy is too hard or large, the dog will just chew it differently - more of a sort of scraping, gnawing chew - but without injuring its teeth, whereas if it’s too small or soft, the toy may break or wear down too quickly and pieces may be ingested (which actually, usually isn’t a problem, but it’s not the ideal)
Channeling my wife (looking over my shoulder): The Nylabone was the durabone, and was the “wolf” size. She took her in, and says the veterinarian (the dental specialist who pulled the one tooth and fixed the other one) said he sees dogs break that tooth on the Nylabone all the time, and said that Nylabones are one of the worst thing you can give to a dog, and they’d be better off chewing on sticks. The total for the dental work was $800.