Yeah I thought so

you are on a roll today J !

I went and asked at my vets practice about bones once on a open day. One agreed with giving bones to dogs, but the other one disagreed, firstly because they could splinter, even when being chewed well, and cause tears in the gullet, stomach or intestine, if they are well chewed up they can cause a blockage in the intestines which requires a operation to clear. He did not advise giving bones at all.

So I'm afraid Blackie does not get any at all just denta rask, dentastix, carrots and dental chew( which he doesn't like).

Ian

He he yes I am.. Dont think I have anymore now though

I tend to agree with you Ian. It is necessary to weigh up the benefits of feeding bones against the drawbacks, i.e. impaction, choking, internal damage, tooth wear & damage. In the end it is an individual decision. Many dogs go through life chomping bones with no ill-effects at all. I have had a dog choke on a bone and would not wish my dog, or myself, to go through that again I am therefore over-cautious, but I would not discourage the feeding of bones - only plead that supervision is always exercised, never leave a dog alone with any type of bone.

You can buy meat minced i.e chicken, lamb etc from the pet shop near us and it contains a % of ground bone, they say for calcium. Would you still need to feed RMB as well as this? if they chewed on other things like rawhides for their teeth?

This is what I've been buying. I used to cook it with veg but have been feeding it raw for a few days. I also gave whole meat (as he likes to tear it) with bonemeal.
I wondered if I could just carry on with this and give a big, say, marrow bone, once a week.

Gonna sound really thick but is a carcass a whole chicken with meat that you would buy for roasting for instance, or is it just the bones with the meat chopped off.
Don't laugh.

Very true. Until I realised it was wrong Woody and Pickles regulary used to get left over cooked spare rib bones after a bar-b-cue! Woody would literally chomp twice and swallow, talk about lucky!
Will definitely be feeding raw with any future dogs, it can be risky but then what isn't!

I think it was before your time Ian, but I can remember one of Lel's dogs (libby I think) had a bone stuck and had to have surgery... So yes its scary...

I think I will feed the minced meat with "crushed" bones in it.

I'm wondering about that chicken carcasses too LS? Do you simply give the dog a whole chicken??? And LS I think we could feed the minced meat and then give a marrow bone or in Luna's case I would let her have her giant chew:


She has this alway lying around. Usually she only chews it, when I'm home, and have the last few weeks brought it to bed