Bone question

    • Gold Top Dog

    Bone question

    I've never given my dogs a bone before.  Saturday I was poking around the Nature's Variety freezer at the pet store and got two chunks of bone "Bison bone".  It looks like 3 inches of PVC pipe filled with guts.  They were frozen so I put them in the fridge overnight.  Kenya was eating one earlier and now Coke has it.  He's licking it and chewing on it.  Is he supposed to eat the bone?  He doesn't seem to care about the actual bone at all.  Also, will this thing spoil?  He's basically cleaned it off so can I let him have the rest of the bone indefinitely (of course only when supervised) or do I trash it now that it's been out of the freezer for a while?

    • Gold Top Dog

    This type of bone?

    If it is...Apollo gets them every once in awhile. If it's frozen I give it to him that way, so it takes longer for him to get the good stuff out. Once the bone it cleaned out I usually wash it with warm water and sometimes put a little peanut butter in it or canned dog food. But, if it starts to break I throw it away.

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    • Gold Top Dog

     sounds like a marrow bone I am no expert but I have been giving them to Bugsy for over a year. He will try to eat the bone though and has splintered them so I have to be very careful.  I fear he'll break a tooth in his attempts to crack it open. The stuff inside is marrow and some dogs find it rich and get loose poops from it, Bugsy has never had that happen.

    Yea for Kenya & Coke I bet they loved it! 

    • Gold Top Dog

     My dogs keep their marrow bones.  I refill them with things like yogurt, PB, canned dog food, kibble, liverwurst, hot dogs pieces etc and freeze them just like a kong.  They only go in the garbage if they crack.

    And no they don't consume the marrow bones.  No weight bearing bones are really consumable, at least not from large animals.  

    • Gold Top Dog

    Yes!  That is it in the pic.  I threw one away b/c there was guts still in it and Kenya abandoned it for several hours.  The other one I think Coke cleaned and I put it back in the freezer.  I'll wash it out and save it for them. 

    • Gold Top Dog
    Mine will gnaw on them over and over and eventually eat the bone away too. I usually re-freeze them after an hour or so if there is still meat on them. Once they are cleaned, I leave them alone and "retire" them every week or so for a new one.
    • Gold Top Dog

    Awesome!  Finally something they can chew.  They have a nylabone, but I know those can be iffy and they really aren't that interested in it.  I don't give them much raw stuff b/c they have to eat indoors and they have bedding in their crates.

    • Gold Top Dog

    Liesje
    I don't give them much raw stuff b/c they have to eat indoors and they have bedding in their crates

     

       Jessie always takes bones outside; her choice. Some members teach their dogs to chew bones on an old sheet which they wash after the dog is done. Dogs will sometimes eat the inside walls of a marrow bone; Jessie has. I saw she was scraping pieces of the bone off with her teeth so I took it away. She apparently had problems digesting the bone because the next day she acted like something was bothering her for about a minute after passing stool, and when I checked the stool there were bone fragments in it.
     

    • Gold Top Dog

    My dogs always cleaned out their marrow bones in a sitting. I leave the bones lying around, indefinitely. If I get sick of stepping on, rolling over on, or tripping over a bone, I throw it away. If a bone gets any smell to it, I throw it away. If a bone starts to have pieces broken off, I throw it away. Otherwise? It lasts and lasts. Emma will grab one and chew it, for months after the stuff is out of it.