The truth about rawhides?

[Renee750il]

I gave Kharma one once. She was so funny. She spit it out and looked at it, then looked at me, whined and licked my pant leg, as if to get the taste off of her tongue! What a little Drama Queen!

Shiva snatched it and ate it, but right afterwards she went over to the food dish and got a cabbage leaf out of it and ate it. I guess it's safe to assume neither one of the girls like Greenies.

Bimmer sniffed it and walked off.

 

[pitbulliest]

Aww I wish my dogs liked greenies...they're not bone fans..I have to brush they're teeth every day dangit lol..they're both spoiled brats and they don't like anything unless its expensive, fresh, and edible...lol

 

[Love4Pits]

I bought greenies once and only Akara and Shady ended up liking them lol.

 

[Renee750il]

Aww I wish my dogs liked greenies...they're not bone fans..I have to brush they're teeth every day dangit lol..they're both spoiled brats and they don't like anything unless its expensive, fresh, and edible...lol

Mine like it fresh, too - freshly caught is just the best in their book . . . So far Bimmer's the only coney-catcher, but he and the girls have pretty much decimated the groundhog population, so Shiva and Kharma are trying to learn to catch rabbits too now.

 

[Mordy]

Anybody know about hooves?

same thing as with the bones and other edible animal parts (pig ears, snouts and so on) - stay away from processed (smoked, sterilized etc.) products. if they are just dried without any other processing, they are still "junk food" but ok.

just keep in mind that hooves are very hard and pose a risk for breaking teeth and don't have any nutritional value.

overall, for your dog's greatest benefit give things that are actually consumable, even if it takes a while. a variety of textures (bone, tendons, skin, cartilage) has the greatest effect on oral health.

 

[smkie]

Thanks, I didn't know if they counted becuase they are just trimmed. My little dog use to jump in and grab the piece trimmed off of my horse's hooves when we had the ferrier in. Ok..I will remove those too. I sure wish Vic liked nylabones but he doens't. He is just about past the chewing stage anyway..Bones naturally scare me so bad as a choking thing. My Mom's irish setter died from a fairly large, hard to believe it could have swalloweed it bone. Maybe we need to come up with ideas for new products we could make at home!

 

[Renee750il]

I knew a woman once whose biscuits would have made good dog chews! I taught her my Nanny's secret for biscuits, though - so no new doggie product there, lol!

Seriously, maybe we could come up with some sort of high nutrition biscotti-type snack thingy . . . have to think about that one.

Mordy, any suggestions for ingredients?

 

[Mordy]

smkie, if it's just trimmings from the hoof as they come off, don't worry about it. i mean commercially processed items like cow hooves and so on.

as for the biscotti...there is actually a pretty nice commercial treat with human grade ingredients. check out liverbiscotti.com - those are what i often use as training treats.

for bigger hard-biscuit style things, the innova health bars are great. no junk in them and you can even use them as meal replacements if need be.

 

[Renee750il]

I consider myself very lucky; the place I buy my dog food, Agri Feed and Pet Supply in Knoxville, Tennessee, gets these great bakery made dog treats from a pet bakery in Chattanooga. The ingredients are wonderful and the dogs go into spasms of ecstasy over them. They even make these humongous, hard biscuits that even take Shiva and Kharma a few minutes to dispose of = Bimmer takes his in the bedroom on his rug and gets catatonic while he's gnawing on his.

I'm just always up for fiddling around and coming up with new recipes . . . the biscotti theory is interesting because the twice-baked method will render an extremely hard, crunchy result. I'm wondering where I might get some good, organic bone meal . . .

 

[Mordy]

don't bother about the bone meal. use egg shells from organic, free range eggs.

 

[Renee750il]

LOL! Oh, Mordy, I can tell you live in a more civilized place than I! Organic, free range eggs are, pardon the expression, scarce as hen's teeth here! And it would take me months to use enough eggs to have enough egg shells to even bother with. The power to the stove here has been out for over a year. I made a serious tactical error in bringing my big electric skillet from my house out here to the farm, so Charley is perfectly happy with the stuff I whip up between the skillet and the rice cooker. Not much baking going on to use any kind of quantities of eggs, lol!

 

[Mordy]

aww that is too bad! maybe you need a few chickens of your own then!

 

[Renee750il]

ROFLMAO! And just how long do you think chickens would survive here with my predators, never mind us actually getting any of the eggs before Shiva found them?

 

[Lindsey042]

i have a small dog (terrier mix, about 9 lbs.) and she LOVES the little "dingo" bones, the very small rawhides with 'meat' in the middle. it is the only thing she really likes to chew on and they are the perfect size for her.

Does anyone have a suggestion of something about the same size that is safer for her? she is only nine months old and since i have started giving her these bones she has quit chewing anything she isnt suppose to (aka my shoes). she loves them and eats about one every 1-2 days, so i hate to take them away from her until i can find something she likes as much, in addition to saving all of my shoes.

 

[skittledoo]

hmmm.... I know this is going to prob sound like a stupid question, but seeing as how all my past dogs have only chewed rawhides, I don't know the answer.

I know when you're feeding raw you usually want to freeze it first to kill off parasites. Now what about raw bones then? Some raw bones I find still have a little meat on them. Do you want to freeze that then or is it safe to give as is?

 

[Zoom]

I usually just freeze the whole bone and then toss it to them frozen. Makes it last longer and keeps them more occupied.

 

[skittledoo]

awesome, thanks Zoom

 

[Storee's Mom]

hmmm.... I know this is going to prob sound like a stupid question, but seeing as how all my past dogs have only chewed rawhides, I don't know the answer.

I know when you're feeding raw you usually want to freeze it first to kill off parasites. Now what about raw bones then? Some raw bones I find still have a little meat on them. Do you want to freeze that then or is it safe to give as is?

Depends on where you get the bones from. If they're for human use (from a butcher or grocery store) then you should be fine for parasites. The only thing I've ever frozen was deer bones that were from a hunter, but even then the ribcage was too big so they got it right away and were fine. You can get bones from a raw food supplier as well, we have two freezers full of elk, beef, bison, chicken, turkey, ostrich and llama bones.

We also have elk antlers which are a big hit and cleaner than bones.

Lana