Bones are an important part of a raw diet and provide many benefits to your dog, like cleaning plaque and tartar off their teeth, and especially for very active dogs, gnawing on a bone can actually tire them out!

The following is re-posted from Dr. Karen Becker,
a veterinarian posting on the Healthy Pets website. |
 (http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2013/04/15/raw-food-diet-part-3.aspx

Safely Feeding Raw Bones to Your Pet

Recreational chew bones like knucklebones can also fracture teeth. Lots of dogs end up with terrible teeth fractures from the misconception that all dogs do well chewing raw bones. And you’ll see that on the Internet. You’ll even see that in comments on my Facebook page. “Oh, just throw your dog a knucklebone and everything will be fine.” Lots of dogs can chew raw bones with no problem. But there are dogs that chew raw bones and do substantial oral damage. My veterinary dentist says he has financed an entire wing of his hospital from removing painful broken teeth after people have followed the misguided advice to“Just throw him a soup bone, and he’ll love it.”

Most dogs do best with recreational bones (bones that are chewed for enjoyment and dental health, not nutritional health) that actually match the size of their head. Small bones like rib bones or very small femur bones tend to cause more tooth fractures for an aggressive chewer, because the dog is able to bite down vertically on the bone, which can snap teeth right off. Other dogs chew bones down to teeny, tiny pieces, then swallow the golf balled size piece that is left, which can get stuck in their GI tracts.

Taking sensible precautions, like always supervising your pet when she has a raw bone, weaning her onto raw bones, removing the bone when the pieces are broken off or it gets too small, and discontinuing raw bones if your pet has weak or fractured teeth, are all good suggestions.

Also keep in mind raw bones contain marrow. Marrow is primarily fat. When I first heard of offering raw bones to dogs, I was in college. I was one of those people that went about it without really thinking. I just threw Gemini (my dog) a raw femur bone in the morning before I went to class. I got home about eight hours later, and she had not moved. She was still by the front door. She was still chewing the bone. Her whole mouth was cut up – it was raw, inflamed, and bleeding. She was completely obsessed with her very first raw bone.

This is an example of what not to do. Gemini was wildly ecstatic about the bone, but it caused trauma to her mouth. So while there are numerous health and psychological benefits from offering raw bones to dogs, you must offer them wisely. I recommend initially offering raw bones for only a few minutes at a time, once a day, until the dog’s GI tract has adapted to the high fat content.

You also want to remove the marrow before giving a bone to a pet with pancreatitis or poor digestion, or you will likely be managing a case of severe diarrhea.

I don’t recommend offering bones communally to a dog pack, because each dog needs his own bone and his own space to chew it in. I recommend picking bones up after each session to avoid resource guarding.

Also keep in mind that a fresh, raw bone quickly becomes a gooey, sloppy mess as your dog chews on it. I recommend you not feed raw bones on your brand new white carpeting, because you will be distraught.

As I always say, there’s no such thing as one best protein, brand of food, or type of food that all pets do well on. The best food you can feed your pet is the freshest, most natural food you can afford to support your pet’s overall health, well-being, and vitality.