Antlers

[budgieluv3]

Those raw-hide alternative chews look great

Those were the things I was talking about that we used for the family dog way back when. Sorry if I used the wrong wording when describing them in my last post.

 

[painesgrey]

I've heard vets use the "thumbnail" test to judge whether something is too hard to give to dogs. If your fingernail doesn't make a dent in it, it's likely too hard and has the potential to break teeth. I've heard of soooooo many dogs breaking teeth down to the pulp on antlers, requiring vet intervention.

Another vet dentist recommends that if you wouldn't hit yourself on the knee with it, then why let your dog chew on it?

Don't have a dog, but I like to squirrel this kind of information away when I (hopefully) eventually get one.

 

[Zara]

I've heard vets use the "thumbnail" test to judge whether something is too hard to give to dogs. If your fingernail doesn't make a dent in it, it's likely too hard and has the potential to break teeth.

Rib bones don´t have any give to them and he loves them!
When my parents visit and we go to restaurants for dinner, I always order ribs if they have them and always ask for the bones to take home. Sometimes my mum orders lamb on the bone and I take that too.

@Shezbug Back in the UK I had a Tamaskan (A very wolf like dog), and his diet was a handful of biscuits and then I would boil up offcuts from the butchers, my ex was friends with them and he´d bring home bags full of skin, off cuts of meat, chicken feet, and a couple of bones.
I think we´ll see how he gets on the with the buffalo horn, he´s never had horns or anything like that, always been bones/feets etc Jacob does not like toys so he may not see it as ¨food¨ and might not even want to chew it..

 

[faislaq]

Our dogs and my family's dogs all like(d) antlers. All American Bulldogs or Pit mixes except Nomi & Jix who we believe are German Shepherd-Kelpie and Great Dane-English Pointer, all 50- 100+ lbs. We finally ordered an 8# box of sheds a few years ago and still have a few left. My mom did take them away from her dogs when they got older. I think one of her dogs ended up chipping a tooth, but nothing so bad as splitting a molar!

We like the antlers because they're a good source of calcium and don't leave sharp pieces in the carpet like bones do. You do have to be careful walking around at night; you don't want to step on 'em. I gave one to a friend & her dog left it in the driveway. It went through her tire on her Tahoe when she accidentally backed over it. After that, my mom and I cut all of our larger ones down to just 2 or 3 points so they laid flatter to the ground.

 

[Pat H]

The antlers make nice bird perches!

 

[Shezbug]

@Zara do you feed Jacob cooked bones? I have never given my dogs cooked bones as they tend to splinter and the dogs apparently can’t digest them properly when cooked. My girls only ever got raw animal products.

 

[Zara]

do you feed Jacob cooked bones?

Yea. Lamb and rib bones both cooked. He chews quite slowly and really grinds them down before swallowing. He doesn´t just break them and swallow them.
All his adult life.

I agve him an uncooked bone once, I think it was a ham bone, he wasn´t interested in it.