Bones and the British

That's weirdMy husband and I had our Westie Emmy for 13 years.She was our first kid.A sweet perfect little girl who died shortly after my son's birth from liver failure.My sister in law was so taken with her she got a little male who's quite a rascal! I love the breed.They are adorable.

Tena 

Did you make it clear you were speaking of *raw* bones?  the whole 'mad cow' thing is pretty terrifying and the idea of feeding RAW meat (and it's in raw meat that mad cow is most transmitted) could easily have been terrifying. And of course we all know not to feed *cooked* bones.  so yeah -- I can imagine that easily.

Turkey is not at all popular in the UK, and pork would be a suspect meat anyway. 

calliecritturs

Did you make it clear you were speaking of *raw* bones?  the whole 'mad cow' thing is pretty terrifying and the idea of feeding RAW meat (and it's in raw meat that mad cow is most transmitted) could easily have been terrifying. And of course we all know not to feed *cooked* bones.  so yeah -- I can imagine that easily.

Turkey is not at all popular in the UK, and pork would be a suspect meat anyway. 

Good point.

 I took it for granted that everyone understands that raw bones are good, cooked, bad. And since I personally don't eat beef I don't think much about mad cow.

racuda

calliecritturs

Did you make it clear you were speaking of *raw* bones?  the whole 'mad cow' thing is pretty terrifying and the idea of feeding RAW meat (and it's in raw meat that mad cow is most transmitted) could easily have been terrifying. And of course we all know not to feed *cooked* bones.  so yeah -- I can imagine that easily.

Turkey is not at all popular in the UK, and pork would be a suspect meat anyway. 

 

 

Good point.

 I took it for granted that everyone understands that raw bones are good, cooked, bad. And since I personally don't eat beef I don't think much about mad cow.

 

I eat plenty of beef, and in the US it's not really an issue, but overseas it is a concern in some areas, especially in the UK.

 I'm English, I don't live there anymore, but we alway's gave raw bones to the dogs. I don't know why you would be put in the banned section, how rude!! LOL

 They should have notified you.

You can actually get "dog mince" in many places in the UK which is ground bones often with the tripe.  Butchers also are very friendly about selling (cheaply) dog bones, in most places.  I don't understand the reaction unless they thought you were talking about cooked bones.  But even then.  Weird.

BSE (mad cow) is passed in brain and spinal tissue, not meat.  It survives cooking, freezing equally well but is not spread easily, thankfully.  BSE cases were all traced to contamination of meat by brain or spinal tissue.  Modern butchering methods remove this tissue before any other cuts are made.

Sheep harbor scrapie, a nearly identical zoonotic disease of the brain and it is believed that BSE was spread to such an extent through the habitual use of ruminant meat meal in feeds given to ruminants - ie, processed sheep scraps were fed to cows (and other sheep).  the US has banned such practices in the human food chain for quite a while.  Fish and pooultry meal is the only animal meal approved for consumption by ruminants.  However, there is a fuzzy area not yet illuminated by science, where "meat meal" might contain cow's blood or restaurant scraps, and could be consumed by ruminants, or else comsumed by animals that are allowed in teh food chain, which include chickens and fish, which could be fed to sheep and poultry, etc.  And there is some thought that fecal material could contain shed prions (the infective agent of BSE)

This is a very good reason to avoid foods that use generic "meat meal." 

Deer in the wild also have this disease so when you use wild hunted meat, be sure to check with your local Fish and Game warden to ensure that the local deer are CWD free.

brookcove

Butchers also are very friendly about selling (cheaply) dog bones, in most places

Yup, my local butcher sells me big recreational bones for 10p (about 20 cents) each.

Bones aren't frowned on, here.  I know plenty of people who feed raw, including bones, so I am not sure what the problem was with the post.   And turkey is becoming much more popular as an "every day" meat, these days I probably eat more turkey than chicken.

paperflowers11

 

racuda

calliecritturs

Did you make it clear you were speaking of *raw* bones?  the whole 'mad cow' thing is pretty terrifying and the idea of feeding RAW meat (and it's in raw meat that mad cow is most transmitted) could easily have been terrifying. And of course we all know not to feed *cooked* bones.  so yeah -- I can imagine that easily.

Turkey is not at all popular in the UK, and pork would be a suspect meat anyway. 

 

 

Good point.

 I took it for granted that everyone understands that raw bones are good, cooked, bad. And since I personally don't eat beef I don't think much about mad cow.

 

I eat plenty of beef, and in the US it's not really an issue, but overseas it is a concern in some areas, especially in the UK.

*waves* I'm in the UK   Our beef is the safest in the world at the moment

I don't know why you were moved/banned; it sounds like that particluar forum... not representative of the rest of the British a) in the way we feed our dogs and b) our manners!  Didn't they even TELL you that the post was being moved and why????  Really odd.  Contact the moderators and ask them -politely - why the post was moved.

 how many replies where there to your thread?

its possible YOU didnt start anything. it probably started with a logical reply, followed up by one jack@$$ who was totally opposed to raw diets and bones in general. and when one @$$ pokes his head out of the wood work...... others tend to follow. either to support him, or to contradict him, in which case the thread turns into a free for all and a mod ends up shutting it down.  Not because anything you did, but because of someone's attitude.

I am a member a UK/Worldwide sporting dog/outdoors forum and have seen the above situations hundreds of times.... even started a few myself before i knew better... i made a thread asking about the Plummer Terrier and after two posts... just TWO! a mod said "We're not even going to attempt to let this start as a nice dicussion because it wont end in one!" so he locked it.... Of course i got about six different people PMing about Plummer Terriers.... 

So dont feel like YOU did anything major. in this same forum the majority of the dog owners feed their dogs a raw diet(mostly because they are hunters and the dogs get a portion of the kill, including pork if thats the intended game)

DumDog

 how many replies where there to your thread?

I don't know. It was banned before I could see any replies!

I'm going to take Chuffy's advice and ask a mod about it.

Now I'm just curious!  Let us know what the mods say...

Now it looks like they may have banned ME! When trying to log in I got an "invalid username" message.

I did submit what they call a "support ticket" to ask why I, and my topic was banned.

 what forum is this??jeez!  and what exactly did you tell them? lmao!

i wanna make sure i dont ever say the same thing to my UK based forum!

Was that the only online community you could find?  Surely not - try a search in Yahoo Groups too!  They sound like the Fun Police there.  I dislike communities with Mystery Rules.  I just recently got into a tiff (yeah, me) on a homeschool group when they ALLOWED a post that said basically, "Come pick up this dog before we go on vacation or we will have her put down by X day because she can't come with us."  And it was a BC.  And the day it came through WAS "X day." 

I wrote the person privately and was told then, that she had a biting history, "But she's really sweet except for that."  And she attached a picture and the poor thing was a spaniel, maybe Golden Retriever mix.  Knowing I had surgery coming up there was no way I could take an unknown like that, that would be basically unplaceable even after rehab because you can't place rehabbed dogs with bite history as pets.  Sometimes if there's lots of room (which there is now you can take such a dog and a miracle might happen) but the timing was just terrible then.

Anyway, I suggested that they board the dog until after that got back, and they said "They couldn't afford it."  I lost it.  I didn't reflect that in my post, I just pointed out nicely that possibly they could have included the cost of boarding in the cost of their vacay (as we always do - or a sitter, or both as we did last time).  I probably wouldn't have said even that if I hadn't been REALLY mad.

Apparently I wasn't the only one, and the person complained to the group owner.  The owner posted this long "shame on you" note with a whole bunch of rules about how one contacted someone privately - hello, you can't dictate content of private communications! I mean her "rules" said you couldn't say negative things, only encouragement.  I contacted the owner forthwith and informed her that I though the whole thing was very odd and mysterious and that I''d never gotten any rules like that in my signup information.  And it might be helpful if dated material was posted before the relavent date.  And a couple philosophical issues I had with a supposedly Christan list that promoted irresponsible animal husbandry.

I have no idea why I was asked to leave at that point.