I took Mako to the vet's this week for his rabies shot. Mako has some tartar on his back molars and the vet mentioned something about having them cleaned. He also suggested giving him bones to scrape off the build-up on his teeth. Mako generally only chews on one side of his mouth so the build-up is worse on that side than the other. We had talked about this before and he had also included Nylabones to the list of things that I could try. All these items have a controversy around them - like so many of the decisions that we have to make in dealing with our pets and their health. I wanted to try other alternatives before I had to put Mako under anesthesia to have his teeth cleaned.
Mako isn't all that interested in chewing but Punch certainly is. My Bull Terrier, Monty, was a chewing fiend. I used to buy him one of the souper size GALILEO bones every year at Christmas and he would gnaw his way through it by the end of the year. Some mega chewing was done by that dog! The floor even vibrated! Punch still gnaws on the last GALILEO bone of Monty's. She has a small GALILEO bone that is more her size but she prefers the one that Monty honed to a mighty peak! Mako is totally uninterested in it.
I tried treating Punch and Mako to the Healthy Edibles Nylabones over the the last six months and they chewed their way through them so quickly that I don't think that they got the benefits that I hoped for. I won't try the more traditional Nylabones because they have the reputation of splintering and I saw that happen firsthand with Monty. As a pup, he crumbled one in his mouth like it was hard candy. It disintegrated into knife-like shards right before my eyes. My father had given it to him without telling me, so it was a double shock that went from "Where did he get that?" to "OMG, it's crumbling! Drop it! Drop it!" He dropped it all right - in millions of pieces!
I used to give them Nutri Dent® / Quest Dental Care System bones daily. They are similar to Greenies which I won't use because of the number of Airedales that I read about on the Airedale-L that had problems with them. Several broke them off and swallowed large pieces that could cause a blockage. Yes, it is just anecdotal evidence but in light of the whole controversy surrounding Greenies and the Airedalean ability to crush them if them decide to do so, I decided that I'd try something different.
So, I gave the Nutri Dents to them for quite awhile until we had a potential Greenie-like incident. Since Punch has food aggression issues at times, I crate her whenever she gets any treats like these. That way, I know that Mako got the bone that I wanted to clean his teeth - not hers. Also, he isn't under pressure to gulp his treats down to keep her from getting them, either. Well, one morning I saw Mako at the door to Punch's crate, offering her his Nutri Dent! I had just given it to Mako, so I went over to take it from him. I was shocked to see that half of it was already missing in just a matter of a few minutes! I saved the remaining half and wondered if he had swallowed that other part in one piece? That night I got the answer to my question when Mako threw up that remaining half in three large fragments. That was the end of Nutri Dents around here. I now give them Dentastix, instead. I also brush their teeth, too.
As for giving them real bones, that makes me nervous. I grew up with a Wire Fox Terrier, Lady, that almost died from a bone fragment that caused a blockage. The vet fussed at my parents and exclaimed, "Don't you know that you're not supposed to give bones to a dog?" Years later, there's still a controversy. It's very confusing. The ezine article, Bones for Dogs - Are They Good or Bad? , touches on several of the issues but ends on the note that they are good for your dog if you are careful about what type of bones that you give your dog. Then I read of worries about bacteria levels in raw meat and bones, and the suggestion on a forum " Should this be of concern, a one minute dip into boiling water is long enough to kill off bacteria without removing the nutrients &/or making the bone splinter when chewed." Raw feeders seem to have no worries about any of this.
I'm a pesco-vegetarian (pescetarian) so the only bones that I deal with are the tiny bones that you pull with pliers from filleted fish or the cooked bones in canned Alaskan salmon that I give to the dogs. They dance for canned salmon! I view that Punch and Mako are naturally meat eaters since they are members of the canine family so I came to the conclusion that I should consider giving them bones.
I decided to return the vet's office and ask the vet techs what type of bones I should feed them and how I should treat them (raw, cooked, etc.). The vet tech at the desk mentioned the Nylabones and soup bones. Then the seemingly eternal controversy ended up playing out again when one of the other vets came to desk and made it known that she didn't like the Nylabones - for the reasons previously mentioned - and didn't like giving bones to dogs because of the dangers of splintering. "I give rawhide to my dogs. Not the type with a knot in it. The straight ones and when they get down to a small piece, I take them away from the dogs."
Rawhide wasn't even on my radar screen! I immediately thought of the arsenic issues that are mentioned with some rawhide products. I used to give huge rawhide bones to Monty the Bully. He could blaze through half of one of those bones with such awesome speed that it scared me. I knew he couldn't be chewing all that much. Then there was the diarrhea... Then no more rawhide for Monty.
I left with the idea that I'd give them soup bones. When I got home, I started researching the rawhide pros and cons on the internet. You can drive yourself crazy with all these concerns and end up paralyzed in a perpetual state of indecision, so I decided to try the rawhide. I settled on an American-made rawhide product that is shaped like a femur. As you can see from the above picture, Mako was doing just the type of chewing that he needs to do. Punch was a little confused at first on how to handle her "bone" but she soon figured it out.
They were both blissed out in a chew-a-thon that lasted for an hour and half. Mako eventually quit and tried to sit on the arm of the sofa, to look out the window, with the rawhide sticking out the side of his mouth. He was a tired but happy boy and ended up dropping the bone. Of course, I had to take the bone from Punch. She was still working away and as I remove it from her crate, she opened her mouth the widest that I have ever seen as she tried to get it back! She looked like Sylvester the Cat as he went after Tweety Bird! I promised her a treat in exchange so she relented and settled for a carrot in return.
I'll see how it goes. So far, the only obvious drawbacks are gooey spots on the carpet plus gooey beards and furnishings. A little scrubbing with soapy hot water took care of all that!