Raw bones

 since they've never had one just limit how much time they have with their bone - some dogs have a bit more difficulty with raw (so I've heard) and if the bone has a lot of marrow that can be too rich for some

Bugsy is very, very jealous!!

(also I'm going to move this to nutrition)

These will be "high value" items for the dogs.  If you are going to limit their time with the bones, ie "take them away", I hope you have some good "trade" or "out" or "leave it" skills in your dogs.  They may be a bit more reluctant to give these bones up than say, just a toy.

 Not wanting to scare you.  Your dogs may be just fine.  My bullies don't seem to think it's a big deal for me to just reach down and take bones from them.  But with my Rottweiler, (when he was still alive), I would be relying on my absolute best "OUT" command to take a raw bone from him.  Different strokes for different dogs.  Just don't want you to be surprised.

 Good advice from the previous posters. Bones are loaded with fat, so watch out for the runs if they eat much of the marrow. Also, watch that they don't try to swallow large chunks of bone. Jessie can't have bones anymore because she has chronic pancreatitis, but when she did have them, she was a careful chewer and I didn't have to worry about her swallowing a large piece and choking, but some dogs will do that. It may be better to separate them when they have the bones so they don't feel the need to gulp down their special treat so the other dogs can't take it. One last thing; it's a possibility that they can break a tooth. I don't want to scare you, but it happens sometimes.

 If they've never had a raw bone, it will be a very big ticket item. I would separate until you know how they'll react.

 Completely forgot to come back to this and tell you how it went.

Blaze and Co-Co really liked them.  I was surprised about Blaze, b/c she is not into chewing much of anything.  Another surprise was Dusty.  She didn't want it at all.  So I gave her a different chewy so that she wasn't left out.  I was prepared to separate everyone, but it ended up being a non-issue, everyone was too concerned w/ their own thing to care what anyone else was doing.

Didn't seem to really bother anyone's stomachs, which was good.  No issues taking them away after awhile either, they just looked at me like "what's next?" so they all got a little treat for that.  They've had them a couple times now and it has gone been successful each time :D

  That's great; glad it worked out so well!!!

Terrific!!  Raw bones are great for keeping dog teeth clean too.  My dog's teeth have some stains, but no tartar. 

Glad your guys enjoyed them!!!

 Marilyn what bones do you give your BT's?  Bugsy is a power chewer and allergic to poultry - he gets beef knuckles when I can find them, pork neck bones sometimes the shoulder bone, and lamb shanks if I can afford and find them.

I've been struggling of late to find anything decent and need some additional ideas.  I don't trust him with ribs because the whole rib can easily fit in his mouth lengthwise and he has also splintered them badly.  He cracks marrow bones so I don't use those either.

thanks in advance

Karen

Karen, we let our two bullies chew on beef leg bones.  We don't like them to be any shorter than about 4" just for saftey.  I would never, ever feed them ribs.  Because these guys can break rib bones in half with a good hard crunch.  And more than likely the rib gets wedged in between the back molars. 

 I had a friend with a bullie arrive in my driveway one day in an emergency.  Their dog was acting very strangely.  Turns out, the dog had a rib bone wedged between her back teeth.  My breaking stick came in real handy so I did not have to stick my fingers in there without some way to keep the dog from crunching down on them.  These dogs aren't vicious.  But when they are chewing they "chew"!  And they will happily chew your hand if you stick it in there, lol!!   

The leg bones work great.  Very rarely will one of my dogs break the bone in half.  But we're out there with them when they have these things.  So, we're right on it to keep them from trying to "eat the whole thing".  These dogs would eat just about anything that wasn't nailed down.  We are very cautious with them.  When the dogs get the marrow out of the bones, we fill them with peanut butter and re-freeze.  On a cold day like today when we want to put the dogs out only briefly, the peanut butter filled bones work great! 

 And, it's for this reason, that the only raw "bones" we feed are the marrow bones.  And we know this is "recreation" only.  The bone they need in their diets is in the ground food we feed them.  We get all our raw food products from OMA'S Pride in CT.  I don't know if it is worth it to you to hunt up their website.  They will ship.  I found this place when I first started feeding raw food.  You can get just about anythng "ground".  I'll admit that I am lazy.  The pre-packaged stuff is very convenient.  I don't own a grinder.  As I say, we get all our food from this company.   But, if there is a food processor anywhere near you, you may be able to get the good beef leg bones near you.  They are worth looking for. 

Gee, Karen, I just posted this and re-read your message again.  I see you have not had good luck with marrow bones!  Duh!!  Well luckily, we have.  I don't know what else we could give them.  I'm afraid that anything they could actually eat would be swallowed in too big pieces.  I hate to say that these dogs are somewhat "stupid".  But they don't exactly think before they swallow!!  I would be prying stuff out of their mouths regularly if they could actually break bones up and eat them!  Sorry I didn't read your post the first time more closely!!! 

dynamobt

Gee, Karen, I just posted this and re-read your message again.  I see you have not had good luck with marrow bones!  Duh!!  Well luckily, we have. 

Once he got the meat and knuckle off this he cracked it 

that was a cow's leg and that is why I was asking you about safe chews for power chewers

kpwlee

dynamobt

Gee, Karen, I just posted this and re-read your message again.  I see you have not had good luck with marrow bones!  Duh!!  Well luckily, we have. 

LOL no problem- yea Bugsy is a big guy and a power chewer so its a nightmare - however he doesn't eat big chunks and is a careful chewer.  But given a marrow bone or whole leg bone he will just crack them to get the marrow out.

Once he got the meat and knuckle off this he cracked it 

that was a cow's leg and that is why I was asking you about safe chews for power chewers

"Houston, you have a problem"!!!  LOL   Seriously.  I "could" give that to my dogs and they would be fine.  You have a real beast on your hands!!!  lol

dynamobt

"Houston, you have a problem"!!!  LOL   Seriously.  I "could" give that to my dogs and they would be fine.  You have a real beast on your hands!!!  lol

 Karen, I think Bugsy may need some Brontosaurus bones.

 dialing Fred Flintstone now.............