If you’re a faithful reader of Auntie Awesome’s stories, you’ll know that I did just about everything wrong when it came to our first dog. If you’re not a faithful reader of Auntie Awesome’s stories, then what is wrong with you??
Among my many idiocies was giving the ten week old Toby a raw ham bone with lots of fat and meat on it.
He refused to give it up. When I sent our younger son to take it away from him, Toby bit him. Two minutes later, Toby presented us with a stinking pile of horrible diarrhea.
Nothing like cleaning watery shit out of the carpet while you comfort your sobbing child to smarten you right the hell up.
After that debacle, Toby didn’t get bones.
Later, I did very occasionally give our dogs big beef marrowbones that had been boiled for hours to make soup stock. I would clean off most of the bits of remaining flesh and scoop out almost all the marrow, leaving just enough tidbits to make it a wonderfully exciting treat, but not enough to make the dogs ill.
I would carefully monitor their chewing and pick up the bone after a quarter hour or so. I never left them alone with it. I didn’t want it splintering and injuring them. As soon as the first crack appeared, the bones was removed permanently.
Opinions about giving dogs bones range from, “Never, under any circumstances. Are you trying to kill your dog?!!?” to “Raw bones with raw meat on them are all you should ever feed your dog. Dogs are carnivores dude and you know, like, wolves eat raw meat and bones in the wild!!!”.
Death can indeed result from dogs eating bones.
Quite honestly it seems that there is not that much actual science to back up the claims at either end of the spectrum.
As with so much else, the answer to the question of whether dogs can or should begin bones, really boils down to, it depends.
It depends on the type and size of bone. It depends on the size and health of the dog. It depends on exercising caution and supervision.
Here are some of the dangers of giving bones to dogs.
1. Bones with the marrow still in have a very high fat content, because marrow is pretty much 100% fat. Ingesting too much fat can cause a dog to have pancreatitis and/or gastroenteritis.
Pancreatitis is inflammation of the pancreas. It is extremely painful. The more severe the inflammation the more severe the consequences. The enzymes released from the inflamed pancreas can damage the organs surrounding the pancreas. In extreme cases, the dog can die.
Gastroenteritis is inflammation of the stomach and intestines. Your dog’s abdomen will be tender. They can be feverish, and vomit and have diarrhea. All those charming things lead to dehydration and a loss of electrolytes in the blood.
2. Bones can splinter. The smaller the bone, the greater the risk of splinter. For this reason, many vets recommend against giving any chicken or pork bones. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out the damage that bones splinters can do – choking the dog, piercing the roof of the mouth or getting stuck at the back of the throat. A bone splinter that pierces the stomach or intestines will result in peritonitis (the infection that occurs when the bacteria in the intestines leaks out into the abdominal cavity).
Even if the bone doesn’t splinter, it can be small enough to be swallowed, but too big to pass through the GI tract, creating a blockage leading to massive constipation.
Your dog may get very, very ill. He may be in a lot of pain. He may die. Not to mention that the bill for surgery to remove a bone shard can be a pretty unhappy shock too.
Cooking bones, even large ones, actually increases the risk of them splintering. This is why I always watched my dogs when they were chewing bones, even the enormous leg bones from the cows that our friendly neighbouring farmer sent to the butcher.
I cooked the bones for my dogs anyway, because –
3. Raw meat may contain harmful bacteria like salmonella and listeria, and parasites in raw meat can cause toxoplasmosis and trichinosis. One study found salmonella or listeria bacteria in 47 of 196 raw pet food samples.
By contrast, none showed up in semi-moist and dry dog food.
Still, this is just one study. There are lots of proponents of the raw meat diet for dogs who will point out for example, that up to 36% of healthy dogs may have salmonella bacteria lurking in their innards as part to the normal fauna living there, and they shed them in the normal excretion process. Trichinosis and toxoplasmosis parasites are killed by prolonged freezing of the meat in question.
I’m not going to venture down into the minefield of raw meat diets. I simply point out that the risk is there.
4. Bones can break teeth. This is painful for your dog and your wallet.
5. Bones are a choking hazard. Bones that don’t splinter can still get stuck in the windpipe and cause choking. They can also get hooked over your pet’s jaw, or lodged between the roof and floor of the mouth. You risk getting bitten trying to get them out. Or it may mean a trip to the vet.
On the other hand, there are benefits to giving your dog bones.
1. Cleaner teeth. Chewing bones regularly can reduce plaque on the teeth. Assuming, that is, the teeth don’t get broken on the bones. Ha. Ha.
2. Bones will satisfy your dog’s urge to chew; an urge that is particularly strong in puppies.
A bone may help save your furniture from the ravages of canine teeth.
3. Dogs mostly love them. Don’t you want your dog to be happy?
If you exercise common sense and caution, it’s probably pretty safe to give a dog a bone that can’t be swallowed whole, as long as you supervise.
Whether or not you decide to give your dog bones, whether or not you decide to cook them or give them to her raw, will probably depend on your personality. If you are the kind of person who puts safety locks on all cupboard doors, the refrigerator and toilet seat and covers up electrical switch plates the second the pregnancy is confirmed, you will probably decide that the risk is not worth the benefit. If you’re the kind of person who gives in to your dog’s pleading eyes and takes him in the car, even on a warm day, but leaves the conditioning running, you will probably give your dog a bone at some point.
For every sad story of someone who ended up at the vet because they gave their dog a bone, there are probably thousands or more dogs who have happily chewed bones and been perfectly fine. We had a client whose dog’s raw meat diet included chicken parts, complete with all the bones. I used to shudder when I threw them down for him to eat, but the dog was fine. Maybe it was a sheer good luck and they simply beat the odds.
On a simple cost benefit analysis, the Vulcans would tell us there is no reason to give our dogs bones and risk harming them. On an emotional level, a lot of dogs love bones. On a cultural level, dogs and bones have gone together since Old Mother Hubbard was a flirty girl.
Which camp do you fall into?