Raw bones or cooked bones.. are either safe?

Feeding raw foods such as meat, eggs, fish, fruit and vegetables can be tremendously beneficial to  dogs and cats.  Raw foods retain many health-enhancing benefits that cooked foods may lack.  We encourage pet owners to look into the advantages and disadvantages of feeding raw foods.  If you "do it yourself" by composing a homemade diet for your pets you must be very careful that the amounts and ratios of nutrients are correct.  The eventual effects of deficiencies, imbalances and over-supplementing a diet may not show detrimental effects in an animal for months after an improper diet has been fed.

There are people who will tell you that feeding bones is natural and healthy for dogs, and that feeding bones promotes clean teeth and aids the nutritional status of the animal.  Well, mushrooms are natural, too, and certain kinds will kill a dog if eaten.  Pine trees are alive with vital cellular nutrients of all kinds, but does that imply that we should grind up pine trees and feed them to our pets in order to provide their "vital nutrients" to our pets?   I will share with you just a few examples of many where a dog has been very seriously harmed by ingesting bones...YES, EVEN RAW BONES!

It is my belief that feeding bones to dogs is not perfectly safe to do. Many experienced and knowledgeable veterinarians feel the same.  Yes, there are some veterinarians who encourage the feeding of raw, whole bones.   Pet owners must decide for themselves what really makes sense and what just seems like a good thing to do.  Lets go right to the first x-rays, below left, and I will show you a case that was presented to Dr. Ray Goodroad in Rhinelander, Wisconsin in December, 1998.  This hound of about 75 pounds was found by his owner feeding on a dead deer carcass.  The dog became very lethargic, attempted unsuccessfully to vomit and pass stool, and was dehydrated.  This dog was feeding NATURALLY on RAW BONES and you can see the results.

Now take a look at the x-ray on the right.  This dog was straining to pass stool, was weak and dehydrated when presented to the veterinarian, and had a history of raiding the neighbor's garbage cans.  Both dogs required four days in the hospital, anesthesia and sedation, repeated enemas, i.v. fluid therapy, antibiotics, and additional x-rays.  If this treatment approach wasn't successful, major surgery would have been necessary to save the dogs from an agonizing death.

Now, for those of you who state with confidence that "Wolves in the wild eat bones all the time; so it must be OK for dogs to do the same", I would ask you this... How many times have you even seen a healthy wolf? How can you state with authority that wolves are NOT occasionally harmed by a bone splinter?  I can tell you this: If a wolf unluckily happens to become disabled by intestinal bone fragments such as the dogs in these examples were, the wolf's cousins would dispatch the sick wolf in moments "...and unto dust thou shalt return".  Hardly anyone ever sees even a healthy wolf, how much more unlikely would it be to happen upon a sick wolf when being a "sick wolf" is equivalent to a swift death sentence!   We don't get many opportunity to do autopsies on dead wolves.

Hard "round" bones are no different.  As well as creating the chance for major problems, such as death, gnawing on bones often results in the cracking of the tips of the 4th premolars.  These cracked teeth can lead to root infections and SUBORBITAL ABSCESSES that require tooth Here's a HARD bone causing trouble.reconstruction or extraction.   I have seen these cases frequently in practice.  Lets be practical... the nutritional benefits from feeding bones to your dog are derived from the soft tissues attached to the bone such as meat, cartilage, fat and connective tissue... not from the bones themselves.  Bone is composed of minerals that are common in many ordinary foods.  The scant protein matrix in bone is mainly collagen and dogs can't digest and assimilate collagen!  So where's all that great nutritional  benefit that is supposed to be coming from the actual "bone" really coming from?  It comes from the meat, cartilage, fat and connective tissue that happens to be along for the ride.

Just for fun, though, lets assume there are great benefits to be derived from feeding bones, but with that benefit comes the slight chance that drastic major surgery may be needed to save your dog's life as a result of feeding those bones...WHY DO IT??!!  Very  nutritious foods are available, some have ground bone as part of the recipe and the ground bone poses no threat.

 

Comments

[steve duno]

The doctor is correct about feeding bones to a dog. However, he is incorrect about his assumption that members of a sick wolf's pack would "dispatch the wolf in moments." Research shows that wolves will actually take care of and feed sick, injured or old pack members for amazing lengths of time. And when a fellow pack member dies, its fellow pack members often leave the body without eating it, unless no other sources of meat are available.