raw foods

As long as the bones are raw. I think the size of the dog might be a factor, as well as his crunching habits. As I am new I closely monitor my dogs while they eat. Too small of a bone has to be watched with my large dog and I will closely watch my small dog with the larger bones. I have only offered chicken thighs and wings but there are so many animals to choose from. I am offering only chicken right now as this is a gradual change. They say the biggest mistake people make when starting raw is giving too much variety in the beginning. So right now they are only on chicken.

Well...I feed my dogs commercial kibble also. As far as bones go. Abosolutely not! None! My oldest dog...Daisy...is a chow lab mix and is a pretty "thick" dog. She is full grown now. When she was younger we would bought her those chew bones at the store and She would decour them. In a matter of minutes. But soon after she finished them we would find she'd have regurged. So we stopped buying those and I never "gave" my dogs chicken bones. Jeff gave Daisy a ham bone and the same thing happened! And any time she would get a bone from an unattended plate or the trash weather it be pork, steak, or whatever...the same thing! She can not digest them. And it would always be little shards and splinters. So we just don't give them bones at all.

I also knew a lab when I was little that ate some chicken bones from out of the trash and it died from the splintering. It was my neighbors and it was so horrible!

but to each his own i reckon!

JEFFNME what you are saying seems to be about cooked bones, which are horrible to give dogs. OUt of the trash, off of dinner plates, of COURSE these animals are going to get sick/die. Cooking makes these bones into weapons basically. I am talking raw, straight off the chickens back.

You bought some chew treat at a pet store and your pet didn't digest it.....what a shocker! The kind of things I am talking about would most likely come from a butcher shop.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wolfsnaps

JEFFNME what you are saying seems to be about cooked bones, which are horrible to give dogs. OUt of the trash, off of dinner plates, of COURSE these animals are going to get sick/die. Cooking makes these bones into weapons basically. I am talking raw, straight off the chickens back.

You bought some chew treat at a pet store and your pet didn't digest it.....what a shocker! The kind of things I am talking about would most likely come from a butcher shop.

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[QOUTE=jeffnme] I never "gave" my dogs chicken bones. Jeff gave Daisy a ham bone and the same thing happened! And any time she would get a bone from an unattended plate or the trash weather it be pork, steak, or whatever...the same thing! She can not digest them. And it would always be little shards and splinters. So we just don't give them bones at all.[/QUOTE]

I understand...I was simply stating I give my dogs NO bones cooked or raw.

Why not to give cooked bones: a case history.

"Buddy" is a 3 year old neutered male Boston Terrier mix. He presented for vomiting, bloody stool and abdominal pain. When a rectal temperature was obtained, there was a "gritty" feeling, and frank blood on the thermometer.

When queried about possible foreign body ingestions, the owners said that the day before they had given him some pork shoulder bones from a BBQ but felt that was not the problem. The dog immediately vomited a large volume of blood and bone fragments. (This was intensely funny, but of course you can't laugh at clients to their faces).

X-rays revealed a GI tract packed with radiographically opaque material (bones). Buddy was hospitalized on IV fluid support with heavy pain control to allow him to pass the bone fragments naturally. Radiographs are attached.

Lateral view (large image):
http://slrt24.winvoice.com/donteatbones/2005-10-15%20027.jpg
The dog is on his side, head at the left side of the screen and pelvis at the right. You can see that his colon is more dense than his skeleton. This is not supposed to happen!

Ventral-dorsal view (large image):
http://slrt24.winvoice.com/donteatbo...0-15%20028.jpg
The dog is on his back, chest at the top of the image and pelvis at the bottom.
We saw a very similar one with raw bones, but it was a larger dog and the owners didn't authorize x-rays so I don't have cool pics. The dog was vomiting spiky pieces of chewed up vertebra and blood. Not sure what kind of animal, as the dog had been missing all day.

It's interesting this thread came about...I'm starting to switch our pets (cats and dogs) back over to raw foods...weird...great minds think alike!
Because of issues with my rottweilers and there BARK diet (mainly the bones and they fact the dogs ate WAY to fast...being there was 13 of them) I just feed the meat/organs and soft tissues...you can always puree the bones or parts you are worried about...why throw them out?

THEAUDONE, you could try feeding the dogs frozen or partially frozen raw meaty bones. It would slow them down.

Well I can't really say much good about the way my grandmother feeds her dogs. It is terrible, and I just know that if my grandmother doesn't change her ways soon, Haley will die a few years short. She feeds them Kibbles N' Bits dry and wet food. I am going to ask around and see if this food is good or like many of the other pet foods available, CRAP. She also leaves out a BOWL FULL of large milkbones broken into smaller pieces (the dogs are Yorkies), so basically they have a bowl full of treats available all day long. Now, you'd think that just a bowl full of treats, plus a bowl full of kibble, and wet food at night, would be the end of it. Nope!

My grandmother also feeds table food to her dogs. They will sit by the table and whine and beg until she gives them some. She feeds them cooked chicken, fish, beef, ect. Also, these dogs get no excersize (sp). They don't play with toys and the most activity they get is if someone comes to the door or if they go outside for 5 min to go to the bathroom. Yorkies are supposed to be around 5-6lbs, no more, right? The vet said Keltie, the runt of her litter, would probably not reach over 4 or 5 lbs. She is now 7-9lbs. Haley, the biggest one, weighs somewhere around 11lbs. Almost twice what she should be.

I've started taking them for walks to reduce thier weight, but I guess we'll see. My grandmother may be in her 60's, but if she's active enough to work and move heavy furniture, I think she can spare 15 min a day to walk her own dogs.

As for me, I can't tell you what I feed my dogs because I don't have dogs of my own. I have cats, and they eat Nutro Indoor Formula. They love it. The ONLY time I give them people food is when I eat tapioca pudding and they only get to lick the carton. Occasionally, and we are talking like once or twice a month, they will get tuna or some other kind of fish. Other than that, no people food.

I was considering trying a raw diet for them, so if anyone could provide some really good links about it, I'd be a very happy cat-owner.

Wow, it seems like the only good thing your grandma's yorkies are getting is the table scraps. Cooked meat is ok, its better than kibble....no cooked bones though, can't stress that enough. Kibbles and bits, ol roy, beneful, purina dog chow (which is what we were giving our dogs before :( ) ALL CRAPOLA....just because the dogs will eat it doesnt mean it is good for them. I wouldn't let a child eat chips and candy everyday!

But it is hard to get people to change their minds on things like this. If they don't want to learn ,they wont. I am getting so much flack for feeding my dogs actual chicken. Stuff like "your dogs eat better than you" "Those poor kids in china" blah blah blah. I love my dogs, they are my furkids. I want them to live a long, healthy happy life.

Yea, I told my grandmother that the food she was feeding was bad for them. She says that the other foods were too expensive. I pay about $25-30 on food for my cats a month. As far as I know, they are eating the good stuff. Before they were eating Whiskas which I was told was crap, so I switched them. I'd rather pay a lot of money and know my cats are getting the right kind of food, then feeding them junk just because it costs less.

Well I broke down and the cats are licking up some plain vanilla icecream. They've had a lot of exersize lately so I figured a little bit wouldn't hurt. But I'm going to add some extra play time tonight to make up for it. Normally I don't feed them anything with dairy since some cats can't digest it.

My grandmother won't change her mind on the kind of food she feeds her dogs. I've been trying for almost a year to get her to change the food, and she won't listen. Since they eat it, (one of them is a picky eater) she buys it.