Are you feeding bones to your dog?

Traditionally, people feed their dogs bones. In cartoons, dogs chew bones happily and salivate over them. Dogs do enjoy chewing bones, but bones are not good for your dogs!

Bones including all forms of bones, ranging from chicken bones to beef bones, are dangerous to all dogs. Bones are often been chewed into sharp pieces before dogs can swallow them. The bones cannot be digested in the dog's digestive system and they will hurt your dog's digestive tract.

Bone eating dogs will have a variety of symptoms. Small bones such as fish and tiny chicken bones may choke the dog. Some dogs suffer from vomiting while some may have bloody diarrhea (raw or dark brown or black blood in loose poo). This is because the sharp ends of bones erode or worse puncture the intestines wall which in turn irritates the bowel. Some dogs, however, will encounter constipation, which is due to the pain of trying to pass out the sharp bones. The worst consequence of bone eating is the pieces of bones blocking the intestines which may lead to death if not treated immediately. In this severe case, the only solution is surgical treatment to remove the bones that block the intestines.

If you still want to give your dog bones, then switch to raw hide bones instead, which is safer and yet satisfy your dog's bone eating instinct!