Give your Dog a Bone?

Eating raw bones is as natural for dogs as eating raw meat. Dogs are natural hunters and survived in the wild from eating both fresh and decaying meat. Bones are a natural part of their diet and are of great nutritional value for your dog. And they enjoy it. Dogs can quite happily amuse themselves for hours by chewing on a bone.

But with the increase of ‘ready-to-eat’ commercial dog food, the time-honoured tradition of giving a dog a bone is in decline. Additionally, opinions on feeding bones differ between owners, breeders and vets, with some arguing against feeding dogs bones for fear of them choking or swallowing fragments that are too large for them to digest. Here’s some information to help you weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of feeding your dogs bones.

Oral hygiene and nutrition

Raw bones are of great nutritional value to your dog. The RSPCA recommends you regularly give your dog a raw bone for oral-hygiene purposes. Gnawing a raw bone does wonders for a dog’s mouth as the meat and bone massages the and gums, cleaning away any residual food and reducing tartar development. This helps prevent bad breath, dental cavities and reduces the need for expensive veterinary dental scaling and extractions. Raw bones are also a natural and highly digestible source of calcium, which balances the high levels of phosphorous found in raw meat. They also contain small amounts of cartilage, bone marrow and other minerals that are vital for bone health.

Furthermore, chewing raw bones can have a beneficial effect on your dog’s digestive tract, providing the roughage they need to ‘clean’ the insides.

Minimising the risks

• To reduce the risk of your dog choking on a bone or swallowing a piece that’s too large for them to digest, choose a sturdy bone (marrow bones are excellent) that will not splinter. Make your choice based on the size and chewing ability of your dog.
• Never feed your dog cooked bones. Cooked bones are blunter and more brittle and can actually blunt your dog’s teeth. They also break into chunks more easily than raw bones, meaning your dog can more easily swallow a piece he will struggle to digest. Cooked bones are also generally harder to digest and slower to break down, and can cause gut pain, scarring of the gut lining and bleeding, and constipation.
• Never feed your dog small bones that they can swallow whole. This can cause major digestive problems such as intestinal obstruction or even perforation, which may require surgery or can even be fatal.
• Marrow bones are great for large dogs, but keep in mind that marrow is very fatty. However, you can remove the marrow from the middle quite easily by cutting it lengthways.
• When feeding your dog raw food, it is important to worm them at least every three months.
• Keep an eye on them while they are chewing on their bone, and throw away bones that have become small enough to be swallowed.
• Be wary of the packaging of a bone — even if it claims the bone is completely digestible.

What bone should I give my dog?

The type of bone you give your dog will depend largely on their size. Large breeds can handle larger bones like lamb necks and shanks or beef leg bones. Smaller dogs are better suited to chicken necks or wings, lamb flaps, brisket bones and ribs.

Puppies (meaning small breeds aged six to 12 months, medium breeds aged a year to 18 months and large breeds aged two years) can be given a raw bone about every other day while they are growing.

Adult dogs can happily eat a bone every day, twice a week is perfectly acceptable.