Bone Danger

rannmiller said:

I agree, but it would be nice to know what kind of bones they were feeding this dog that caused this, just so we know for sure. I hate that stupid BARF diet because it seems like it just encourages people to jump on board without doing any research. "Oh add raw bones to the diet? well those aren't safe if they're whole, better smash them up for my dog so he doesn't have to worry about choking!"

Like I said, I don't know for sure that's what happened, but it is possible. My dogs have never gotten a pre-smashed bone and they've never had a problem with the bones they do eat.

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here's the exact question the woman originally asked;

I wanted to reply on the news section about bones if they are good or bad for dogs but I can't reply to the thread. It was said in that article that bones are good if too large for the dog to swallow. It was also stated that small bones can damage the gastrointestinal tract of the dog. What is the first thing that we should do if the dog swallowed a small bone?

Here's the immediate reply from the vet student;

take him to the vet

Trust me, you don't want to play around with broken and splintered bone pieces in your dog's GI tract

Here's what the next woman said after I replied;

Mr. Vega is absolutely correct. He is a veterinary student. I'll take his advice over those who are offering only uneducated opinions any day!!!

And finally here's my come back;

i wouldn't quite go as far as to say uneducated opinions. I know tons of people who feed their dogs a raw prey model based diet with plenty of bones, and have been doing so for years and years will no problem whatsoever.

also wolves in the wild eat bones all the time and have been surviving for over 100,000 years. go figure.

by the way, are vets the same people who recommend foods such as iams, purina, or science diet??? GO FIGURE!!!!!

(Think I was a little out of line? I couldn't help myself)

The last lady said... well, wolves are USED to eating bones. Dogs are not adapted to eating them.

I responded... Oh, don't give me that BULLSHIT, then i calmed myself down, took a deep breath, and pressed delete instead of enter LOL.

I would like to know more about what the vet student said. I have been feeding raw for almost 8 years without a single bone problem. My dogs swallow chicken drumsticks stolen from the cats completely whole. They will chomp a chicken quarter a few times then swallow them whole. They eat the bones in a Boston Butt pork roast regularly. I'm just not the least bit concerned about bones. Dogs are well equipped to handle them and are born with the instince to eat them.

I have been on several raw feeding lists and have never heard anyone say their dog had a perforated intestine. In all my years of participating on these lists, I have heard of TWO dog in nearly 8 years and reading well over 100,000 posts that had a bone problem. One got a blockage and one got a bone stuck in his throat.

I have heard of many more dogs getting things like balls, chew toys, rags, wash cloths, etc stuck than I have bones. I had a cat die from a blockage 5 years ago. Had a necropsy done on him and it turned out to be a piece of cloth blocking his intestine.

My personal feelings are that there was something wrong with this dog. I think it was a dog problem and not a bone problem. Intestines are pretty tough. I have known bones to make the trip all the way through them without causing a problem. I have had vets tell me about perforated intestines but when questioned about them they will admit, "Oh, I didn't actually see the dog, one of my collegues did."

It's from stories like this one that scare so many people and turn vets off of a raw diet. I personally think this situation could have been avoided if the OP did some more research because it sounds to me like she had no idea what she was doing. What forum is this from...I would be interested to go see it.

From the sounds of it I say that the OP was just giving raw bones with raw meat...not raw MEATY bones. I would need to know more about the dog to even think about what the actual problem was.

How long had this dog been on raw? Newly switched dogs systems cannot handle bones as experienced raw fed dogs. This is the reason why people ask about bone fragments in their dog's stool in the first few weeks. If this was a newly transitioned dog AND the owner was feeding it inappropriate types of bones, even if they were raw...I can see the prolem starting from that point alone.

I would need to know EXACTLY what kinds of bones this dog was fed. I know that it says just chicken bones were added to the food, but that doesn't tell us if the dog was being fed other types of bones for rec chewing. If the owner was giving it raw beef bones that he was breaking off pieces himself, that I can see causing an issue. We all know that beef bones are typically VERY dense so if he was splintering off raw bits off of a weight bearing bone...those shards would act like little knives in the dogs system, if new to raw.

Jodysmom said:

If this woman is just giving raw dog bones to her dog and not following the ratio of 80/10/10 then the bones could cause a problem..right? Isn't this
why we give our dogs bones with meat on them?

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You are absolutely 100% correct. If the owner was feeding JUST bones that could easily cause an issue. This is exactly why we feed raw meaty bones that are big enough for dogs to at least crunch a few times before swallowing.

Bone fed in exclusivity can cause serious constipation. Bone acts as a constipator which is why we suggest upping the bone portion of the diet if dogs have loose stool. But I don't think this is what the OP was doing. It sounds to me that he was feeding raw meat and pieces of raw bones because he said that he was adding raw bone to her dog's diet, not adding raw meaty bones.

The 80/10/10 is just a guideline so that people can get an idea of how much of each to include in the diet. We suggest people follow this guideline so they just don't arbitrarily feed too much of one thing but not enough of another...and end up with a sick dog. This ratio wasn't just pulled out of thin air either. We adhere to the idea of feeding a dogs natural diet as close as we can get it. Most prey items contain mostly muscle meat, some bone and some organ. There are some people out there that need numbers and figures to tell them exactly what to do. This is absolutely just fine, but with experience feeding raw they will see that it is all just a guideline and you pay more attention to bowel movements and body condition then the percentages to feed of what.

You most certainly can feed just a bone to your dog for the sake of recreational chewing but the ONLY one that I would suggest is raw beef ribs. Technically they have meat on them, but not much at all. Our dogs clean them off and then gnaw on them for a week or so until
the next serving of beef ribs.

Welcome to the boards :biggrin: :wink:

danemama08 said:

It's from stories like this one that scare so many people and turn vets off of a raw diet. I personally think this situation could have been avoided if the OP did some more research because it sounds to me like she had no idea what she was doing. What forum is this from...I would be interested to go see it.

From the sounds of it I say that the OP was just giving raw bones with raw meat...not raw MEATY bones. I would need to know more about the dog to even think about what the actual problem was.

How long had this dog been on raw? Newly switched dogs systems cannot handle bones as experienced raw fed dogs. This is the reason why people ask about bone fragments in their dog's stool in the first few weeks. If this was a newly transitioned dog AND the owner was feeding it inappropriate types of bones, even if they were raw...I can see the prolem starting from that point alone.

I would need to know EXACTLY what kinds of bones this dog was fed. I know that it says just chicken bones were added to the food, but that doesn't tell us if the dog was being fed other types of bones for rec chewing. If the owner was giving it raw beef bones that he was breaking off pieces himself, that I can see causing an issue. We all know that beef bones are typically VERY dense so if he was splintering off raw bits off of a weight bearing bone...those shards would act like little knives in the dogs system, if new to raw.



You are absolutely 100% correct. If the owner was feeding JUST bones that could easily cause an issue. This is exactly why we feed raw meaty bones that are big enough for dogs to at least crunch a few times before swallowing.

Bone fed in exclusivity can cause serious constipation. Bone acts as a constipator which is why we suggest upping the bone portion of the diet if dogs have loose stool. But I don't think this is what the OP was doing. It sounds to me that he was feeding raw meat and pieces of raw bones because he said that he was adding raw bone to her dog's diet, not adding raw meaty bones.

The 80/10/10 is just a guideline so that people can get an idea of how much of each to include in the diet. We suggest people follow this guideline so they just don't arbitrarily feed too much of one thing but not enough of another...and end up with a sick dog. This ratio wasn't just pulled out of thin air either. We adhere to the idea of feeding a dogs natural diet as close as we can get it. Most prey items contain mostly muscle meat, some bone and some organ. There are some people out there that need numbers and figures to tell them exactly what to do. This is absolutely just fine, but with experience feeding raw they will see that it is all just a guideline and you pay more attention to bowel movements and body condition then the percentages to feed of what.

You most certainly can feed just a bone to your dog for the sake of recreational chewing but the ONLY one that I would suggest is raw beef ribs. Technically they have meat on them, but not much at all. Our dogs clean them off and then gnaw on them for a week or so until
the next serving of beef ribs.

Welcome to the boards :biggrin: :wink:

Click to expand...

The forum is i-love-dogs.com/forums

here is a link to the entire thread;

All About Bones - Page 2 - Dog Health & Nutrition - Dog Forums - I-Love-Dogs.com

Here's what someone said today about wolves and dogs being different;

First to note, I think there is some confusion when linking wolves to dogs. Wolves to do come in multiple sizes. As one who was raised and been around wolves nearly my entire life to assume a 10 lbs dog in anyway should be eating the same as a 140lbs wolf is not a comparable comparison. Wolves are Wolves, dogs are dogs and with this man has imprinted the creation of dogs only based on Wolves. Had he not, we would only have wolves today. The assumption that what wolves have done for 100,000 years has no bearing any longer when it comes to dogs as dogs come in to many multiple sizes therefore large or small, cooked or raw the potential is always there. As there is no fail safe to ensure that a dog will never have a problem no matter how large or small it begs that one lean on the side of caution.
As for panic, I never stated anything about panic or even taking the dog to the vet.
My contention to use eye bones is that they are good to nurse on with regards to teething and gnawing with little to no chance to actually eat them.
If members elect to give their dogs bones, that is there choice but Mr Vega notes what has been an issue for many years where in fact the chance of bones causing internal issues does exist and in the case as he described, had the people taken your advice and not panic and wait, would it not had made more sense to get the dog in promptly instead of watching it for a few days or whatever time frame you imply is not panicking. Common sense is you have any sense your dog is in danger you address it, not sit around and observe it when fact is you are not qualified to do so let alone have no access to the tools your vet does to properly diagnose a problem.
As for wolves thriving on bones for all those years. That is a great misconception. Granted they ate them but they thrived on the meat from the carcass. It is not uncommon at all to see the skeletal remains left behind by wolves once done with the prey. The emphasis on bones when it came to wolves primarily was when their food source was near extinction or when the land was bare of prey. It was then not uncommon for them to eat skeletal remains of others kills.
Todays breeds are not wolves and the continued linking to them only creates more confusion. Dogs today are dogs, they are not wolves. Whether it be pack mentality or socialization. Much of what we see in dogs is only a small resemblance to their far distant relative.
Wolves instinctively hunt as this is the only means they have for food. Most dog breeds do not carry these instincts. Many dogs will chase prey which implies they are hunting but the hunting also involves the capture and killing of the prey. Unfortunately most dogs that chase ironically don't complete the step of capture and kill, they just have the instincts to chase. In those rare cases that they do chase and kill, they do not eat. So using the premise that wolves do this therefore dogs should really is not the same.
The practice of giving dogs bones though it has gone on for years does not necessarily make it good or bad. It is like all things, something that people figure is good for them so therefore we do it. But again, I only give bones to my large breed dogs and when I say large breed dogs I should have clarified, I only gave them to Thor my late 175lbs Mal/Wolf. Granted, he did have the power to shatter a large beef bone and occasionally ate it. This in no way implies I would give one of my Miniature Pinschers a bone. Even though as terriers they did originally live off rats and mice. I don't feel the risk of an internal issue is worth it. But this is my opinion and mine alone. Each has their own opinion as to why they give or don't give bones to dogs.

Here's my reply: The comparison between wolves and dogs is not always physical characteristics, but rather genetical characteristics. When it comes to diet, the digestive systems of wolves and dogs are virtually the same, which can handle similar diets. Yes some dogs are very small and shouldn't be eating the same things as bigger dogs. That's why you must be smart when selecting the correct size for the dog. For example, on a prey model diet you may feed a adult labrador a chicken quarter for a meal. maybe a 10lb dog couldn't handle that, so you'd give the smaller dog a small chicken wing or something to that nature, or even spit the chicken quarter into several sections. Overall, dogs have the same digestive systems as wolves do but both species can be far different sizes. All this means is you should be smart when selecting the righ size bone/piece of meat for that given dog.

On another note, you probably dont want to give your dog a plain bone. its a different story when it's a raw meaty bone.

Here's a question for the vet student... the dog that died was on a BARF diet right? was the bone he had eaten a plain bone or a meaty bone? what type of bone was it?