Question about bones....

 For Callie, I would give her a marrow bone with the majority of the marrow scooped out once a week or so for teeth and cut back on some of her food that day.  If you give her a clean bone, she's not likely to chew it much.  If she does, great, its not gonna add many calories like that.  How much time is she spending in her crate?  Have you had her swimming for exercise?  The other thing you could do would be to soak her food, stuff a marrow bone with it and freeze it for her. 

For the Maltese...why do you want to take the meat off the bone?  I'd do a wing or a drumstick and cut back about 250 calories on those days.   I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable feeding that much bone without meat on it.  I don't even like doing necks too often because the bone to meat ratio is too high.  Mind you I don't feed any kibble so that makes a difference.

Thanks Candace...I will try the marrow bone with Callie....since I give her breakfast in her Kong every day, I might stuff a marrow bone with her food once a week. I bet she would love that. Right now she is still crated pretty much all day. She is only allowed 2 walks per day, 10 minutes max. No other activity at all is allowed. They are being extremely cautious because it was both knees that had the surgery (luxating patella). Callie really doesn't like the water much...it scares her. She is ok in the bath tub and a small kiddie pool, but that's it. She wont go near our pool.

As for the Maltese..I have only had him a few days and didn't want to introduce too many new things to him at once. He has never had raw meat and the shelter told me that he has a very sensitive stomach..whatever that means...lol I'll try a wing and see how he does.

Thanks for the suggestions!   

 The wing shouldn't disturb his tummy too much.  I'd recommend a probiotic though - for the transition and also for the breath problems you mentioned.  You can help his system get a head start the first couple of times by taking a hammer and whacking the bone a few times.  I do this to start cats on raw meaty bones.

Poor Callie!  You can get a knuckle bone where the marrow isn't exposed much - only on one side.  Then carefully scoop out as much as you can.  The marrow is very high in fat so even one ounce left in there (just a couple tablespoons) is 250 calories!  Any meat is not as much of a problem.  Just use nutritiondata.com to figure out how many calories are in that cut of meat (or as close as you can get), and subtract that from her daily kibble ration.  Tip and rump roughly correspond to the type of meat you'd get on a soup bone - you just have to guestimate how much you are giving her.  One ounce - about a 1 1/2" cube of meat - is only 40 to 45 calories. 

Plus, any cartilage she gets (all the connective tissue on the bone), is basically that joint supplement you buy, in raw form, and a lot cheaper - well, except she'd have to eat oodles of it to consume therapeutic levels.  But the levels are much higher than in most foods that include those supplements!

Thanks so much for the helpful advice! Going to try bones tomorrow!  One question...the chicken wing for the Maltese...should I freeze it first? Or is better to give it to him from the fridge?  I just bought some wings today.

Thanks!!

Janet

You can give it straight from the fridge.  I think we may have not been clear - don't feed the entire wing - make sure it's cut into sections as if you were going to do buffalo wings.  Only feed one joint.

Good luck! 

Thanks..yes, I did cut it up into sections...but he wouldn't eat it...lol I think if I froze it, he would probably gnaw on it.

Callie LOVED her marrow bone. I removed the marrow and stuffed it with her regular breakfast...she gnawed on it for a long time. My other dog Buster really does not like raw bones at all. Weird dog...lol