Nylabones and puppy teeth

[Domestika]

I'm wondering how likely it is that a puppy will damage her teeth from chewing a hard Nylabone? Or anything really hard, for that matter.

I know Nylabone makes bones especially for puppies/teething. My 3 month old GSD will chew 1/2" pieces clean off them within 5 minutes so obviously they are too soft (dangerously so) for her. I also tried the step up, just a regular "flexible" Nylabone and she chewed huge chunks off that right away too (darn, that one was huge and expensive and meant to keep her busy for hours!).

So now she's chewing a "durable" Nylabone for "powerful" chewers and this is the only one that she can chew without taking large pieces off of. But is this damaging to her puppy teeth or her jaw? Can it cause a serious problem to have her chewing something so hard?

On a side note, I can't even imagine chewing something really, really hard with loose teeth. That sounds like a nightmare to me. In fact, I've actually had nightmares about that. Yuuuuck.

[jacko]

i suggest to use anything that is recommended by a vet... haven't use anything so far..

[emc]

Don't know whether it could damage a puppy's teeth, but my dog loves her nylabone, it's about the only thing she hasn't been able to destroy.

[Ratboy]

My Pit mix Gus kind of liked them, and when he was a puppy and chewing up everything, I would give them to him, and he would break them, even with his puppy teeth, without any harm to him, except he quickly developed big white calluses on his gums. Over his 14.5 years, only those **** "chew hoofs" caused problems, breaking the tips off two of his teeth. He really liked the "Gumabones", but they were pretty expensive to give him, since it would be gone in only a few minutes. Rawhide was his real favorite, eating about a box of "Chew-Eez" a day most of his life. Kind of weird having a 14+ year old dog with nice white teeth. They were spotless.

[lizzybeth727]

If she likes the nylabones, I'd stick with those. The soft ones where she's biting chunks off are not good (they are almost 100% plastic, not good to swallow), but if she likes the stronger ones than they are obviously not hurting her.

I personally like knuckle bones better, I just buy the ones in the rawhide aisle at the pet store. Obviously you don't want to give them to your dog if she's biting off chunks of bone and swallowing it, but if she just knaws off dust, that's good, it's calcium which is healthy for dogs to eat.

(My dog is chewing on one right now, in fact.)

[ihartgonzo]

Nylabones can be dangerous if you have a dog who rips off chunks or who chews on the hard Nylabones voraciously... my BIL's Bulldog literally ground his teeth down on them as a puppy. He also nearly needed surgery when a chunk of Nylabone caused a blockage in his intestines. Then again, he was/is a complete monster!

I would feel ok feeding Edibles, by Nylabone, and the hardest Nylabones as long as they are big and you're there to make sure she isn't gnawing at them for hours on end.

I definitely prefer edible, natural chews. Costco sells huge packages of bully sticks for a very reasonable price, and Merrick's bags of bully sticks are only like $20, and lasted my friend a few months with her BC puppy. I am very picky about the safety of chews, but I feel comfortable feeding bully sticks, tendons, lamb/pig ears, and beef tails. There are also plenty of safe and healthy raw bones that she can take out her chewing on! Meaty, raw knuckle bones really helped me through Fozzie's teething stage. ANYTHING containing a cooked/smoked/sterilized bone is bad news.

[Lizmo]

Two of my pups had Nylabones when puppies and never had problems. One chewed a Puppy Nylabone for a few hours on the trip home.

I've also given my bigger dogs the Edibles Nylabones and they LOVE them.