While raw feeders know that dogs evolved from wolves and keep much of the same digestion, most people feed their dogs commercial dog food and dog treats. This is more a function of vet commercial campaigns than what benefits your dog. So we will now look at the other side – what natural animal bones can provide your dog.
The major benefits that dog bones provide dogs are:
- dental health
- mental stimulation
- overall well-being & NUTRTION
If you were wondering, this article concentrates on the Mental stimulation that bones provide your dog.
This article will help you choose the right bones and treats, the mental benefits of chewing, and safety considerations.
What gnawing on bones provides your dog
Chewing is a natural behavior for dogs, and dog bone dog treats are the best way of enacting that behavior, it serves many other important functions, here are just four that we have selected:
A. Mental Stimulation: Chewing bones can alleviate boredom and anxiety, providing mental engagement. This is why it’s known as the king of occupier treats. And what many people give them to their dogs to reduce the incidence of separation anxiety.
Lack of mental stimulation may develop behavioral issues such as excessive barking, digging, or chewing on inappropriate items. This means (without a proper outlet such as bone chewing) that you end up having an adult dog, with puppy issues, but ones that are much more costly to fix.
B. Instinctual Behavior: Chewing mimics natural dog behaviors observed in wild canines and wolves.
The action of chewing bones provides comfort and satisfaction, allowing dogs to express their instincts. People observe dogs turning in circles before they sit down, or their chase instinct and know this is many centuries old behaviors locked in their dogs primal brain. But they forget that the action of chewing (on an actual real food item) is just another primal instinct that needs an outlet.
C. Stress Relief: Chewing dog bones can be a self-soothing activity for dogs. This is particularly important for those dogs and dog breeds prone to separation anxiety. Long term stress can build up toxins in the body and stress hormones, while the action of chewing can provide create Cortisol.
This naturally occurring chemical inside your dog looks after all organs and tissue. It helps regulate your dog’s body’s stress response and controls its use of fats, proteins and carbohydrates. Yes, it is that important physically too.
D. Dental Health: This is one of the major benefits of dog bones, and exclusively why many owners by these treats. In the wild the higher dogs in the pack will get the best meats, and provide organs and meats to their offspring. While the bone, taking a lot longer to chew, for less immediate nutrition is often what is left over for the lowest members in the pack.
Ironically all dogs need the calcium and phosphorous that bone tissue provides, and without it, a wild dogs own bones would become weak. Commercial dog food tries to mimic this mineral requirement with all different kinds of compounds, but not all are as bio-available as animal bones are for dogs.
For modern day domestic dogs, dog bone chewing removes plaque and tartar buildup on teeth. This is important for the dog’s teeth health as well as preventing the costly process of vet teeth cleaning (often not covered under pet insurance.
The process of dogs chewing bones can dramatically reduce the risk of dental disease, not only includes the teeth, but the health of the gums and even the jaw. If a dog can chew properly, then it can’t rip even soft meats apart.
If you still aren’t convinced that your dog can manage chewing a bone, even a small one, a natural alternative that also gives great joint support and pain relief to dogs is shark cartilage. Surprisingly many of our customers choose shark cartilage for its teeth cleaning properties than they do for its primary function of arthritis relief.
This is what just eating kibble or soft can substance will cause to happen through atrophy of the jaw muscles.
The American Veterinary Dental College data suggests that 80% of dogs show signs of dental disease by the age of three (AVDC, 2022).
Dogs and safe chewing
Upfront, I will tell you something that almost every dog owner knows. Every bone product comes with the warning to consult your vet first. Be aware, that vets are trained to sell kibble and canned food from major brands. Things that dogs don’t have to chew.
Vet’s clean dog teeth, which is a very expensive procedure, and much of the tooth decay is caused by carbs in the foods that vets want to sell you.
That said, we will now look at the practicality of what safe dog bone chewing involves.
A. Supervision is always recommended for bones.
Be aware that dogs can choke on kibble too (look up stories about bloat in some breeds of dogs).
Some breeds of dogs, and some specific dog ‘personalities’ attack bones with full gusto and want to break through to the tasty marrow, that is also a great energy source. It is obviously these individuals that require the most supervision.
Rubber and plastic toys (which are often recommended by vets over bones) present even more of a choking hazard. This is because they can often be more flexible, so when bitten off, can expand in a dog’s throat completely cutting off their airways.
While raw bones (rather than oven dried) can be great for many dogs, not all dogs (particularly the young and older ones) can’t easily overcome bad bacteria that is often present on cooked bones. Similarly small children can be vulnerable to infections. Cooked bones can both be pliable AND have 100% of the bacteria killed off in the cooking process. YES, 100% means that the original bacteria population can not grow at all.
B. Inspect ALL Chews
This means both toys and bones. But because more people are aware that bones are still around, because they can smell them, broken toys presenting choking hazards often stay hidden for years until it’s too late.
Some people will tell you to discard any items that show signs of splintering, cracking, or excessive wear. That makes sense with plastic and rubber toys, yet people pay good money for these items so often keep them around for longer than they should.
This now leads into the conversation for appropriate dog bones, for each dog. If you want a massive bone that a dog is unlikely to ever splinter, people (with most breeds of dogs) will often buy cow leg bones or buffalo leg bones. Smaller dogs are unlikely to break kangaroo bones, or other wild animal leg bones, because the animals spend a lot of time running on those legs, and the bones are made incredibly strong.
This is why many people buy mid-sized bones, that are relatively easy to break pieces off. A good chewing dog, that you have already supervised how well they bite and chew before swallowing, will get plenty of mental stimulation and nutrition from ripping apart things like kangaroo lumbar bones.
These bones kangaroo lumbar bones, also happen to be the best on the market for cleaning teeth – beating lamb necks because they are low fat. They will then have to figure out how to eat the meat from between the bone blades. The best of all worlds.
Then we go to the faster eating treats, but ones that provide great nutrition, like smoked chicken necks, kangaroo tail pieces, chicken feet. These provide soft round smaller bones that typically don’t splinter. And they include a lot of meat on them. Most dogs can easily crunch down on these bones without the likelihood of it being a safety concern.
C. Digestive Issues
While some people will like to tell you that dogs can have gut issues because of eating bones, if they eat soft smaller bones, or chew bigger bones well, then eating oven dried bones have less of a health risk (from bacteria and any pathogen) than any other food source.
Mostly the sources misinformation about bones are talking about allergies, but if your dog can eat beef and chicken, then they can eat beef bones and chicken bones, because they have the same protein profile.
Bones typically dissolve well in the stomach of dogs, because dogs have a high acid stomach composition. Only dogs that have only been fed kibble (which can mess with their natural pH levels) or sick dogs, will have anything other than proper pH levels.
CONCLUSIONS
All dogs have a natural chewing instinct. All domestic dogs evolved from the grey wolf, and the grey wolfs reason for being was to act as the alpha predator and run down prey and rip it apart and chew the raw meat. They would use everything from the kill, including all the bones.
Your dog is unlikely to have the jaw pressure of the wolf, so it will take your dog longer to chew, or they might be disinterested in very big bones that they can’t get any purchase on.
The process of chewing not only provides great mental stimulation, but strengthens their jaws, helping to keep their teeth in place to old age. As well as cleaning teeth and keeping the gums healthy.
Just choose a bone suitable for purpose that you are getting it for (occupier treat, or nutrition, or just mental stimulation) and initially supervise them eating it.
Check with your vet if you feel you need to. Just enjoy your dog enjoying their best, natural life.