Re: bones

In Reply to: bones
Category:   Medical
Posted by:  carmel
Posted on:  February 28, 2002 at 06:35:52

: I have been reading about bones on the letters posted and feel I am more confused about what I should be giving to my Jack. I normally give him a marrow bone to clean his teeth every couple of week or so. But you have been talking about freezing bones, bacteria in the meat, please explain what I SHOULD be doing?

Response:

Hi Carmel,

Raw marrow bones are fine, as long as the individual dog has no problem with them.

As far as bacteria, freezing is not going to rid food of bacteria. Not all bacteria anyway.

My dogs eat raw bones daily. I feed a raw diet. Not everyone feels comfortable with that, and it's up to each person to decide what they want to feed. There is a lot of information out there on the subject, books, websites, etc.

Dogs do not have the same digestive systems that humans do. Digestion starts in our mouths, but not in a dogs. Dogs do not chew their food the way we do, have a much shorter digestive system, and a healthy dog is unlikely to become sick from properly handled raw meat.

There are risks with everything we feed our furkids. Dogs have become ill from eating kibble. Kibble has even been found to have bacteria {salmonella for one}.

Anyway, this is my personal opinon. Each person feels differently when it comes to diet/nutrition.

Hope this helps,