Is it okay to give my dog a bone?

Dog loves bone, and they consider a bone a prized possession, but can dog actually eat any kind of bones?

A dog’s digestive tract is much shorter than a human and is designed specifically to process meat and bone together, hence it is okay to give your dog a bone, but how do you know which bones are safe?

What to look out for when feeding bone to my dog?

1. Ensure the bone is not cooked

Cooked bone is more brittle, and will likely to splinter when ingest by your dog. Raw bone is safer and less likely to splinter.

2. Choose a bone that is about the size of the head of your dog

A bone that is too small will be a risk for dog which tend to chomp straight down into their throat, resulting in choking. A bigger size bone allows the dog to use their paws to hold it while they slowly gnaw it down.

3. Ensure there are some meat on the bones

The purpose of the meat attached with the bones not only allows your dog to enjoy their chews better, but your dog will also be better protected by the meat they eat along with the bone.

4. Ensure the bone is not a weight bearing bone

Weight bearing bone is extremely hard. To reduce the risk of your dog breaking his teeth on bones, do not feed on weight bearing bone. Weight bearing bone of smaller animals such as rabbits, chickens etc are not as hard and are less likely to fracture your dog’s teeth

Hence, we always bring in dog chew bones that are safer for your dogs such as Kangaroo Clod Bone, Kangaroo Tail Disc, and even the big Ostrich Bone.

Check out tag #bones.

As with all bones, even though dogs are carnivores and feeding and gnawing on bones are okay for them, bear in mind that bones are bones, there is a risk of choking if your dog swallows without thoroughly chewing. Your dog will certainly break them up into small, sharp looking bits and swallow them. And it is impossible for anyone to promise you that a splinter from a bone will not harm your dog. All we can say is that many people nowadays feed their dogs on raw bones, without their dogs coming to harm, so you as the owner will have to decide for your dogs.  

Hence, always ensure supervise chewing.  

If after reading about the potential dangers of feeding your dogs with bones, you have decided that this practice is not for your, don’t worry, you have other options as well. There are other fully digestible dog treats and dog chews that do not contain bones such as our Buffalo Skin Stick, Lamb Braided Pizzle and Bull Pizzle.