Red loves Rawhide chews.........although one chew stick lasts him weeks. I keep an eye on the bones if it looks like hes almost chewed the end off it, I throw it.

I use the large cigar type ones and make sure they are tightly wound, those with knots can cause a problem if swallowed.

Sorry, my PC has hicups again.

http://www.daneangelnetwork.org/rawhide.htm
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Rawhide is just exactly what it says, a raw dried out animal hide. This includes not only the rawhide bones & chews but also pig ears, pig snouts, bull tails, cow ears, lamb ears, choo-hooves, etc. The vast majority of rawhide pet treats are not made in the United States. But even those marked “Made in the U.S.” are a hazard.

A piece of rawhide purchased as a treat for your pet is a hide, usually bull, cow or horse obtained from slaughter houses, that has been scraped clean of all vestiges of meat, fat and hair. Rawhide, however, can be made from just about any animal. For Native Americans and early Europeans, it was the sheet metal, nails and binding material of the day. Rawhide was used to repair items such as horse gear and broken gunstocks. It was used in cabin construction as door hinges, windows and truss bindings and Mandan Indians used rawhide in the construction of their boats. As you can see, rawhide is a very strong, durable, heavy-duty item that does not easily break down

Still want to give it to your pets?

How is it made? Rawhide is made for commercial use from bull, cow and horsehides obtained from slaughterhouses as a byproduct of the meat industry. The flesh side is scraped clean of all remaining meat, membrane, fat, etc. Traditionally this is done by hand, using a drawknife and scraper. Modern day tanneries use a form of a band saw to speed the process up and make a nice clean piece of leather. Commercial manufacturers of rawhide products have machinery to do this. Once the flesh side is cleaned, the hair must be removed. There are two traditional ways of doing this. One is to “dry scrape” by hand. This is extremely time consuming, not to mention the amount of good ol’ fashioned elbow grease! Commercial makers of rawhide do not use this method.

The other method is to soak the fleshed hide in either an Ash-Lye solution or a Lime solution. The Ash-Lye involves covering or soaking the hide in a mixture of wood ash and water, which creates Lye. The hide soaks for approximately. 3 days in the Lye solution, then as much of the hair as possible is scraped off. The process is repeated until all hair is removed.

The Lime solution is the quickest and most often utilized by manufacturers. This utilizes ordinary builders powdered (hydrated) Lime. The hide soaks for 1-3 days and the hair is scraped off. This process is highly caustic but the most efficient for mass production.

To remove all traces of the Lime solution and to sanitize the rawhide product, commercial makers then rinse the hides in a bleach solution before creating whatever shape is to be used. The bone and other shapes used to attract you and your pet are created while the hide is still wet. The “treats” are then either dried or sent for “smoking” to further entice the unsuspecting owner and pet. A processed rawhide can shrink up to half its original size when dried.

If the chemicals used to make these “treats” haven’t convinced you to stop, please consider this:
When rawhide is again wetted, usually when your pet salivates over this chew you have provided, it will slowly regain its original size. When your pet tears off and swallows a piece, that piece then has the potential to swell inside your dog’s stomach. Your dog’s gastric juices WILL NOT break down the rawhide. Once swollen, the piece then has the potential to cause anything from mild to severe gastric upset, to death.
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Hades used to love em hours of fun..BUT
I dont give them to him anymore...for the same reason!
I think if your dogs chews them well then they can be o.k, but hades is a greedy pig and trys to swallow big bits of them hes ripped off with out chewing them properly and nearly choked on it!
I trying to get it out... but lucky enough he coughed it out....but it frightened the life out of me, the noise he was making was horrible!
So I would advise you not to give your dog one unattend...but that goes for all treats really!

Have u (or anyone reading) tried these ones from your link :Trixie Chew Bone with Tripe Stuffing? Haven't seen stuffed hide bones before.

also the parma bones? I have tried those from a petshop once and they didn't agree with my dogs.

Are they the ones that are wrapped in air tight plastic?.... ham bones
If they are my hades LOVEZ em...keeps him quite for a bit while I get on with some work!

Yes that is them, but I don't know what brand the ones I bought were.

No I haven't tried them - I prefer to give natural treats without flavourings/additives and I don't give raw hide.

I haven't bought the parma bone because I think there's probably loads of chemicals in it.