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I currently involved in a "debate" on another dog forum. This vet student told this woman to rush right to the vet because her dog swallowed a small raw bone. Give me a break
Anyway, here's how he countered my point that there's nothing to worry about;
Well, I appreciate the vote of confidence. Todd is definitely entitled to his opinion and probably has good reason to believe that feeding raw bones can be totally harmless if he's never encountered a problem. So, I can't fault him for thinking otherwise if he's only had success with his prey-model diet. However, Tood, this is a post I made on another topic a couple weeks ago. Keep in mind, when I suggest that individual go to the vet in the instance that it swallows a bone, I don't know what you consider small. A few little speckles of bone here and there, so what. But sharp, small, 1 inch pieces of RAW and cooked bones can do plenty.
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Previously posted:
How many of you raw feeders give bones to your dog to eat?
I ask because of this: a lab mix died at the small animal hospital last night after being brought in yesterday morning for vomiting, not eating, and reluctance to move. The owner had been feeding the dog the b.a.r.f. diet and he said he had always put raw chicken bones in with the food b/c he thought it was natural. Well, this little guy's abdomen was very distended and he looked awful. We did an emergency abdominal exploratory after seeing bone fragments in his small intestine on x-ray (or so we thought). Well, it was a risky move because his white cell count
was off so we suspected a perforated intestine (which causes intestinal contents to leak out into the peritoneal cavity = deadly) but had to proceed anyway. Well, it was. A nice tear right through the intestinal wall had allowed all sorts of bad stuff to get out and by the time we closed him up, he was already showing all his signs of septicemia. I went home only to hear the bad news when I came back to school this morning... he didn't make it through the night.
I don't know how big the bones were when the dog started out on them, but, the pieces we took out that had perforated the intestinal wall were about an inch or so long. I've seen and read about this happening from all sorts of bones of all sizes. Personally, if I know a bone (of any size) can somehow (through chewing or whatever) become a sharp object (of any size) it is out of my house immediately.
Here's what I said;
you obviously don't want the bones to be so small that your dog will swallow them without chewing. the bigger the bones, the better, but just because a dogs swallows a small bone doesn't mean you rush to the vet. just observe him yourself as if you sense a problem, then go to the vet. i know of dogs on a prey model diet who literally swallow chicken quarters and pork ribs whole. what about wolves in the wild? if they ran into these problems, they'd be extinct by now. they thrived on raw bones for over 100,000 years! again, you dont want to give a dog little bone pieces hell swallow whole, but the bones that make up chicken quarters of something like that are fine because it in its natural state. problems you see at the vets is probably because of either cooked bones or because of swallowing bones too small to even chew. but again, if your dog swallows a bone by accident, dont panick and run to the vet. observe her and if you sense anything wrong then go to the vet. she will be fine. I also attempted to explain that the chemical makeup of cooked bones and raw bones are completely different. It's not just about hardness or softness.
*Just wondering if you guys would like to comment on this subject.
Well, I appreciate the vote of confidence. Todd is definitely entitled to his opinion and probably has good reason to believe that feeding raw bones can be totally harmless if he's never encountered a problem. So, I can't fault him for thinking otherwise if he's only had success with his prey-model diet. However, Tood, this is a post I made on another topic a couple weeks ago. Keep in mind, when I suggest that individual go to the vet in the instance that it swallows a bone, I don't know what you consider small. A few little speckles of bone here and there, so what. But sharp, small, 1 inch pieces of RAW and cooked bones can do plenty.
----
Previously posted:
How many of you raw feeders give bones to your dog to eat?
I ask because of this: a lab mix died at the small animal hospital last night after being brought in yesterday morning for vomiting, not eating, and reluctance to move. The owner had been feeding the dog the b.a.r.f. diet and he said he had always put raw chicken bones in with the food b/c he thought it was natural. Well, this little guy's abdomen was very distended and he looked awful. We did an emergency abdominal exploratory after seeing bone fragments in his small intestine on x-ray (or so we thought). Well, it was a risky move because his white cell count
was off so we suspected a perforated intestine (which causes intestinal contents to leak out into the peritoneal cavity = deadly) but had to proceed anyway. Well, it was. A nice tear right through the intestinal wall had allowed all sorts of bad stuff to get out and by the time we closed him up, he was already showing all his signs of septicemia. I went home only to hear the bad news when I came back to school this morning... he didn't make it through the night.
I don't know how big the bones were when the dog started out on them, but, the pieces we took out that had perforated the intestinal wall were about an inch or so long. I've seen and read about this happening from all sorts of bones of all sizes. Personally, if I know a bone (of any size) can somehow (through chewing or whatever) become a sharp object (of any size) it is out of my house immediately.
Here's what I said;
you obviously don't want the bones to be so small that your dog will swallow them without chewing. the bigger the bones, the better, but just because a dogs swallows a small bone doesn't mean you rush to the vet. just observe him yourself as if you sense a problem, then go to the vet. i know of dogs on a prey model diet who literally swallow chicken quarters and pork ribs whole. what about wolves in the wild? if they ran into these problems, they'd be extinct by now. they thrived on raw bones for over 100,000 years! again, you dont want to give a dog little bone pieces hell swallow whole, but the bones that make up chicken quarters of something like that are fine because it in its natural state. problems you see at the vets is probably because of either cooked bones or because of swallowing bones too small to even chew. but again, if your dog swallows a bone by accident, dont panick and run to the vet. observe her and if you sense anything wrong then go to the vet. she will be fine. I also attempted to explain that the chemical makeup of cooked bones and raw bones are completely different. It's not just about hardness or softness.
*Just wondering if you guys would like to comment on this subject.