The only place bones belong are in your bin.
The idea that it’s natural for dogs to chew on bones is a popular one. However, it’s a dangerous practice and can cause serious injury to your pet. If you look in the wild, predators feed on a carcass and actually leave the bones behind.
Bones are unsafe no matter what their size. Giving your dog a bone may make your pet a candidate for a trip to your vet later, possible emergency surgery, or even death.
Here are ten reasons that it’s a bad idea to give your dog a bone.
- Bones may lead to broken teeth, which may need to be removed, and chipped enamel.
- Bones may cause mouth or tongue injuries such as lacerations.
- Bones may get looped around your dog’s lower jaw. This can be frightening or painful for your dog and potentially costly to you as your animal may require sedation for this to be removed safely.
- Bones may get stuck in the oesophagus, the tube that food travels through to reach the stomach. Your dog may gag, trying to bring the bone back up, but this will need veterinary intervention to remove.
- Bones may get stuck in the windpipe. This may happen if your dog accidentally inhales a small enough piece of bone. This is an emergency because your dog will have trouble breathing.
- Bones may get stuck in the stomach. It may have gone down just fine, but the bone may be too big to pass out of the stomach and into the intestines. Depending on the bone’s size, your dog may need surgery or upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, a procedure in which your veterinarian uses a long tube with a built-in camera and grabbing tools to try to remove the stuck bone from the stomach.
- Bones may get stuck in intestines and cause a blockage. It may be time for surgery.
- Constipation might result from bone fragments. Even if your dog properly chews bones, they can form solid clumps of bone material. Your dog may have a hard time passing the bone fragments because they’re very sharp and they scrape the inside of the large intestine or rectum as they move along.
- Bones might cause severe bleeding from the rectum. This is very messy and can be dangerous. Bacteria from the intestines can then be absorbed into the bloodstream.
- Bones can result in peritonitis. This nasty, difficult-to-treat bacterial infection of the abdomen is caused when bone fragments poke holes in your dog’s stomach or intestines. Your dog needs an emergency visit to your veterinarian because peritonitis can kill your dog.
Rather try healthy alternatives for your dog especially made for dogs to safely chew on.