Holy Poop, People are Morons

Pooka here, with a 911 411 - I am moved to post on a subject that recently came up on my very favorite-est website:

www.newf.net/forums

Not because the people THERE are morons, (because they aren't), but because when I went out into the general internet to search for answers to the question the poster on Newf.net had asked, the comments, responses and general nonsensicalness of what people had written on the subject was MIND-BOGGLING.

The question came from a lady whose Newf, Chance, had just snuck into the garbage and eaten a whole bunch of back rib bones.

First off - Chance, we don't blame you. The things our humans throw away are completely outrageous. Delicious, and outrageous. Obviously you were just trying to do your part to reduce their global footprint - by lowering your trash output. With that said, those bones were COOKED, my friend. You were really taking a chance, Chance.

The crazy thing though, is that lots of people on the internet are of the opinion that cooked bones are totally okay for dogs. One particularly intelligent specimen actually said that he didn't think eating GLASS was bad for a dog, because they tend to swallow things whole. So, my ducklings, here's our 411 on the whole issue of bones and dogs.

1. Cooked Bones:

The danger with a dog eating cooked bones lies in the way that bones react to cooking. Depending on the TYPE of cooking, most bones become more brittle, and more prone to fracturing into sharp-edged shards. An exception to this is long-term pressure cooking, which causes bones to become extremely soft - almost mushy. But assuming that you didn't pressure cook your bones into gelatin, cooked bones are a total no-no for dogs. Period. Because if a single fragment of a single bone happens to come out sharp, even on only one side, it is capable of doing a lot of damage as it travels through your dog's digestive tract. It can pierce multiple organs, resulting in some EXTREMELY expensive surgery if you are lucky, and a terrible death if you aren't.

Ignore anyone who says that cooked beef/pork/turkey bones are okay because their great great great great grand pappy who kept bear dogs fed 'em scrap cooked bones all the time. Ignore anyone who says that CHICKEN bones are okay, but the others aren't. Ignore anyone that says that certain chicken bones are fine, and not others. ANY cooked bone, (unless it has been pressure cooked into squishiness), has the potential to perforate your pet's inner workings and cause death. Yes, you may get lucky - a cooked bone might be eaten just fine by your pet this time around. Nanook stole a chicken drumstick once, (and only once), after it was cooked, and ate it, and came through the experience just fine. But that is LUCKY - not proof that cooked bones are safe. It's like saying just because you didn't get shot in this round of Russian Roulette, you never will.

So, I will say it again. DO NOT FEED YOUR DOGS COOKED BONES, REGARDLESS OF THE ANIMAL OR ORIGIN.

2. Raw Bones:

For the most part, these are probably okay. Raw bones tend to be softer and more flexible, and they usually don't shatter in such a way as to leave very sharp fragments. They're often touted by raw-feeders as the bee's knees in oral hygiene. We know lots of dogs that are fed them and are totally thrilled. We have also been yelled at, a lot, by vets who say that even raw bones can splinter into sharp fragments. Since that's the case, and we operate on the assumption that our vets USUALLY know what they're talking about, we aren't prepared to say that they're safe, or that they aren't, so we're keeping our mouths shut.

**"But Pooka," you say, "what about wolves and other wild animals, that eat raw bones ALL THE TIME?"

Yeah, okay sure - our wild cousins ingest all sorts of things that we kept dogs don't often get our teeth on. And they seem to be just fine. Our caveat there is that wolves and other wild canids aren't eating just meat and bones, they're also eating the feathers and fur that the meat and bones came wrapped in. Those wrappings are largely indigestible, so they travel through the digestive tract with the bones that don't get digested, and wrap around them in the stomach and intestines - providing those bones with a lovely soft cushion and preventing the bones from irritating the stomach lining and intestines. That this happens is a given - we've sniffed all sorts of wild carnivore poop down in Virginia, and it all had fur or feathers in it tucked among the bones that got passed.

Anyway. Here's the important part of this post - WHAT TO DO IF YOUR DOG HAS EATEN COOKED BONES.

1. Immediately stuff your dog with milk-soaked bread. No, for real. This is what our vet had us do when Nanook ate the dreaded cooked chicken drumstick. The bread will, hypothetically, help cushion the bone fragments as they travel through the stomach and intestines.

We've seen websites where folks advise feeding your dog small amounts of torn up cotton ball smeared with liverwurst, operating on the same principle as the fur/feathers wrapped around the bones - but because cotton isn't digestible, we're not sure how safe this is, and we advise calling your vet regarding this before actually doing it. Indigestible objects can cause obstructions in your pet's guts and make a bad situation much, much worse.

We go for the bread, since we know it DOES digest eventually. If you can get your dog to eat fibrous foods, like canned pumpkin, chopped up green beans, etc, those may also help - Nanook's stool often has partially digested green beans in it, and anything that may provide cushioning between the bones and the walls of the stomach and intestines is a good thing.

2. Call your vet. They'll tell you what to look out for. More than likely, they'll suggest monitoring your dog for vomiting, diarrhea, bloody stool/bloody vomit, abnormal body temperature, appetite loss, and listlessness. They'll also suggest you watch the dog's stool for pieces of bone being passed and perhaps tell you to provide your dog with gut grease, (some sort of mineral oil to help things pass smoothly).