raw bones?

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karan

Boxer Buddy
I have never given my boxer a raw bone; only things like pig ears, bully sticks, greenies and large rawhides. None of those have worked out particularly well because she swallows the first three practlcally whole. Then she's up half the night eating grass and trying to throw up. She needs something to chew on and she doesn't like nylabones and gets bored easily with kongs. Please tell me what type of raw bones and do I need to do anything to them (boil?) before giving them to her. Also, if they last a while, do I boil them or somehow clean them? Thanks.
 

Checkers

Boxer Insane
Absolutely raw bones are the best things you can give your dog to chew on. They are completely digestible, unlike rawhide which can stay in the gut for a long time. Just go to a butcher and ask for dog bones. Im sure they will know what ones.

Never ever cook or boil them though. Cooking makes the bones brittle and they can splinter. They dont last too long, but they are so cheap they are easily replacible ;)

You can put it in the fridge after each use (just run it under cold water if you want to clean it ;)

The ones I get Lily look like this http://www.boxerworld.com/photo/showphoto.php/photo/47318/cat/500/ppuser/30047

You can also get things like brisket (ends of the ribs) but I feed those for dinner sometimes as she can swollow those after a good chew. ;)
 

karan

Boxer Buddy
Laura:
Lily is a gorgeous boxer. Thanks for the info. Hanna is 4 and she's never had a raw bone before. I'm sure she'll be thrilled to get one. So they can just swallow small pieces of them and there's no problem? When my dad was alive, he used to tell me that while growing up on a farm, their dogs would be given raw chicken bones to eat. I always thought: NEVER; but now I wonder. Are raw chicken bones okay to give them?
 

Checkers

Boxer Insane
Thankyou :D

Lily gets raw chicken bones (backs and necks) for breakfast every morning ;) Head down to the BARF forum and read through some of the posts. People there feed their dogs raw meats instead of kibble.

If you gave Hanna big bones like the one I showed you its pretty hard to bite off big chunks of bone. The smaller bones can be chewed up, swollowed and digested well. Excellent teeth cleaner too.

Some good ones are the necks of chicken, turkey, pork, lamb. Lamb flanks, beef brisket and pork ribs are great.

Just never ever cooked bones :)
 

gmacleod

Elusive Moderator
Staff member
Just to add to that, yes raw bones are the best possible thing you can give your dog to chew on. That's what nature intended dogs to eat, and spent 45 million years or so designing them specifically for.

What dogs are NOT designed to consume are hunks of bacteria-leaden leather - otherwise known as rawhides and pigs ears. If you were to do a search of the forums, you'd find several hundred threads about dogs who have choked on those things (and some who've died as a result). You'd find very few about dogs who've had problems with natural raw bones though.

That is not the only problem with raw hide/pigs ears. They are chemically cleaned to remove the hair - and that means your dog is ingesting all those chemicals when they chew on them. They frequently cause impactions/blockages when swallowed, becuase they are indigestible. And on those occassions when the dog swallows bits of those things without either choking or suffering a blockage, the bacteria-laden leather sits around in the gut for days or even weeks causing bacterial poisoning (which is why so many dogs end up with diarrhoea and vomitting after consuming raw hide).

Really, they are nasty, nasty things to let your dog chew on. Better avoided completely.
 

pluto1415

Boxer Booster
I joined here a couple of weeks after getting my pup and as a result of reading the forum decided never to give my pup a rawhide. I go to the butcher counter in the local grocery store and ask for soup bones. They aren't as big as Lily gets, they're only about 5-6 inches long, but they last a long long time and they are dirt cheap. My Mother in Law just recently gave my pup a rawhide when she stopped over for a visit. We tried to tell her we don't give those, but "dogs are supposed to chew rawhides". Well we only let him chew on it for a little bit while she was there and he started to choke on it. Then that evening he had the most horrendous gas he's had in a long time and nothing else was different. No more rawhides for Jake, only raw bones!
 

Maci-May

Super Boxer
i go to the butchers about once a month and get raw bones for nothing i get about 10 at a time and freeze them. They are big bones that i get and take her ages to eat them, i end up throwing half of it away after 3days. I freeze them to keep hem freash and just get one out when she needs one. Most of the time she has them stil frozen
 

FinnysMommy

Boxer Pal
Finnegan is pretty obsessed with his raw bones. We get the huge ones from Petsmart for around 8 or 9 dollars, but they last him for MONTHS... the last much longer too!
 

Angelika_23

Super Boxer
FinnysMommy said:
Finnegan is pretty obsessed with his raw bones. We get the huge ones from Petsmart for around 8 or 9 dollars, but they last him for MONTHS... the last much longer too!

None of the pet stores here have raw bones, but they do have the large sterilised ones. Are you thinking of those? They are long and hollow, and they do cost about 8 or 9 dollars.

Someone on here told me not to use those huge sterilized bones either.

We go to the butcher and get a knuckle and that lasts our Beau for a good while.
 

Maddie's dad

Super Boxer
Since we don't have a major grocery in the area, raw bones were hard to find. Wal-Mart is it and since they don't want to pay meat cutters, all of there meat is pre-packaged. There is a Mennonite slaughter house just out of town. I went there this afternoon and filled two boxes with bones. The price couldn't get any cheaper. They give the bones away. Some of you live in Amish/Mennonite country, so there will probably be more of these around.
 
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