Posted on 04/04/2010 5:32:12 AM PDT by knarf
Boy, did I start an argument yesterday ...
Yesterday was our Easter and after dinner, I threw my dog the drumstick bone from the turkey.
You'd think I was the one that cast the swing vote for obamacare!!
DAD! NEVER feed a dog turkey or chicken bones ... they'll KILL him !
Honey .. I've been doing it for years .. it's alright.
No, Dad ... don't do it.
A few other voices chimed in ... so I pose this Easter Sunday query ...
What IS the truth about turkey and chicken bones?
Too splintery and liable to choke a dog?
(I haven't lost one yet)
I think it depends on the dog. I’ve got Jack Russells and they chew everything into powder so they don’t have any problem with chicken bones.
My neighbor’s dogs eat my chickens (bones and all) and they live to come back for more.
Make them eat salad like cows do. Veggie dogs are better; or so they claim in the commercials. So ditch your Alpo and switch to cans of Veg All...
Chuck Norris eats chicken bones, for breakfast.
Your family is right.
Raw chicken or raw turkey bones are OK, but not cooked. The bones become brittle when cooked and splinter. That’s very dangerous and can kill the dog.
My husband and I have fed our dogs bones and raw food (BARF) for years. But the emphasis is on raw. I also feed them the small soft bones of a cooked bird, i.e., the backs, but never turkey because it is too big and also I think I read somewhere that it is too rich for dogs. Our vet is okay with the raw bones although a good friend who is also a vet hates the idea and says he has had to sew up lots of dog guts that were shredded by bones. I do think that cooked leg bones of a chicken will splinter unless they are way undercooked or way overcooked. And I agree that different dogs eat/chew differently. One dog might chew it up thoroughly and another one might bite it once and swallow it.
We lost a yorkie to a chicken bone. He took it out of the trash, ate it and it splintered and killed him. Yep.
Raw bones are fine, that’s what dogs are designed to eat. But cooked poultry bones can be dangerous to dogs.
If the bones are raw, it’s okay (for the most part). If cooked, it’s bad. The bones splinter and can puncture the stomach/intestines.
About Dogs and Chicken Bones
Common wisdom has long told us that dogs and chicken bones go together about as well as elephants and bicycles. People have been taught that feeding their dogs chicken bones is dangerous for them, likely to cause intestinal injury and of little nutritional value.
Where does a lot of this information come from? Mainly from manufacturers of commercial dog foods who would rather you purchase their products so they can make a tidy profit. Pet owners who naturally want to protect their canine companions tend to believe this information and pass it along to other dog owners, thus perpetuating the notion that chicken bones are harmful to dogs under any circumstance. However, dogs and chicken bones can be compatible under the right conditions.
Raw vs. Cooked
How have most dogs received chicken bones? Most likely as leftovers from their owner's meal. In this case, the chicken bones have been cooked, turning them dry and brittle. This makes them more likely to break into sharp splinters. These splinters then have the opportunity to puncture a hole somewhere in the digestive system, causing what now becomes a veterinary emergency.
Proponents of feeding chicken bones to a dog maintain that raw chicken bones are somewhat flexible and are easily chewed down for proper digesting. This argument does have some merit considering wild dogs ate their prey raw, not processed, for thousands of years before the advent of commercial pet foods. They seemed to have survived quite nicely too.
The BARF Diet
And so we come to the BARF diet. Forget the nauseating thoughts this acronym brings to mind. BARF actually stands for:
Bones
And
Raw
Food
As previously mentioned, dogs have naturally subsisted on raw meat and bones for thousands of years. Their digestive systems were perfectly adapted to render all of their nutrition from these natural foods, and proponents of the BARF diet believe that dogs fed these same items today are actually healthier than dogs fed commercial kibbles that also contain a lot of grain fillers, preservatives and insecticides.
Most BARF diets are based on feeding raw chicken and other game hens since they are inexpensive and easily obtained while doing the family grocery shopping. This raises some concerns about salmonella and other harmful bacteria, since humans need to carefully cook the chicken to make it safe for us to consume.
A dog's digestive system has no such concerns. It was originally designed to make short work of these bacteria so that wild dogs could take nutritional advantage of any leftover carcasses they came upon as they wandered through the wilderness. If you've ever had to frantically pull your dog off what he considered to be some tasty road kill, you've witnessed this instinctual behavior.
So there is no chance those thieving dogs will gag on their prize of pilfered poultry? Damn!
Don’t ever get in a car. They kill people everyday /sarc
I’ve heard BARF explained as Biologically Appropriate Real Food
No chicken or turkey bones for my Shelties. But one time Smokey did manage to snatch a chicken leg from my 5 yr. old at the time son’s plate while he was walking from kitchen to living room with his plate to watch some cartoon. Smokey lived, we chased him to try to get it away and by time we caught up with him in the dining room it was GONE. :)
i have 2 big dogs who sometimes steal chicken leg bones (cooked)and no problems.
Cooked pork bones give them the sh*ts.
Only avoid cooked bones. Raw meaty bones - no problem. We would feed our old dog whole chicken breasts- even whole uncooked chickens.
cooked bones are brittle
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