Do you let your dog have rawhide chews?

[EFerrari]

My Buddy had them for 11 years with no problem and then at the end of her life, something went wrong and a piece of one seemed to get stuck in her system somehow and she was sick for days. :(

I thought it was just her age but two days ago, the same thing happened to Kid and she's only 2 3/4. Argh. Am I the last dummy to figure out they're a bad idea?

/oops!

[Shell Beau]

1. I don't let my dogs have them.

:shrug:

[EFerrari]

3. I feel stupid. What do your babies chew on instead?

Rawhide chews are like television for dogs -- babysitters that kick in for an hour.

Do you not do pig's ears either?

[Shell Beau]

6. No pig ears!! They make these rubber things that you can

put peanut butter in. It takes them a while to get the peanut butter out. Kong makes them.

[EFerrari]

10. Peanut butter! That's a GREAT idea! She loves that!

Thanks!

[Shell Beau]

11. My dogs love them, and it keeps them busy for a while!

[FloridaJudy]

16. My dog HATES the taste of rubber

Any dog toy made of rubber is a complete waste of money. She wouldn't even eat tuna fish out of the Kong, and she's a tuna junkie. Make sure your dog doesn't feel the same before investing, as those Kongs are really pricey.

Now the bull penises (or should that be penii?) are the bomb, as far as she's concerned, even if I find the concept really creepy.

[EFerrari]

23. I can't even think about that.

:rofl:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

29. I bought one of those by accident not realizing what it was

It smelled really bad when the dog started chewing on it.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

We let our dogs have them

Never had a problem. I do know they can cause problems, though.

[BeachBaby]

2. I never let my dogs have them.

It only takes one piece to get lodged into their esophagus - and it suddenly becomes lethal.

Not worth the risk.

[EFerrari]

5. I have to find a replacement for Kid. Buddy used to chew on carrots

but Kid isn't interested in them at all.

[BeachBaby]

7. Have you ever heard of Kong brand chew toys?

They have a lot of great stuff that all my dogs - and my friends' dogs - have enjoyed. It's good for their teeth, too. And nothing big enough breaks off to get lodged in their digestive tracts.

[EFerrari]

12. I'll check it out, thank you.

:)

[old mark]

4. Our dog loves them and the vet has told us several times how clean his teeth are from chewing them.

We get only the plain solid rawhide twisted ones, and I don't know if the brand has anything to do with it.
(I NEVER buy any Hartz Mountain products after seeing the CEO/Owner of the company saying that people who had pets were foolish, and that he has never and would never own an animal.)

I'd ask your vet about it, but I have not heard anything but good about them.

mark

[EFerrari]

9. Buddy got a piece stuck in her plumbing and her stool was liquid

for days -- that's what the vet told me when I took her in. At the time, I just thought it was because she was a senior. But, nope, Kid's been sick in the same way since Sunday. It will resolve itself but it's a helluva thing to put a dog through for no reason.

I only give her the plain twisted ones, too, and like you, not Hartz Mountain.

[old mark]

18. This is the first I heard of the problem - I will keep my eyes open and

look out for trouble - thanks.

mark

[Lyric]

8. Yes--our Toby gets big ones from time to time.

He loves them. We've never had any problems, although I've heard that some people do. Maybe it has something to do with the size of the chew relative to the size of the dog? We get our enormous Golden Retriever, Toby, the biggest ones we can find.

He loves Greenies best, but we can't find any that are large enough to be safe for him now that he's full-grown. :(

[EFerrari]

13. KId is a Labrador Retriever. And she LOVES her rawhide and bones, too.

But, I don't love that they can be dangerous. I'm beginning to think we were just really lucky with our first Lab because she got all the bones -- like ham bones, for example -- and she loved them. But when you see the dog in pain because she's ingested something that she can't process, that's a bad day. :(

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

14. EFerrari, wondering

...I think that is so sad. Try pigs ears. Dogs love them. A lot of people won't buy them for their pets but rawhides are - well you know.

I hope you got my pm. ??

[SacredCow]

15. Not anymore....

I had a dane that would chew on them until the end became like a wet noodle. Then he'd swallow it and pull it out with his paws, gagging the whole time. That just really didn't seem like a good thing... (and it was disgusting to see/hear)

[EFerrari]

22. Yikes!

lol

[PeaceNikki]

17. No, because my last pit and current pit barf them up almost immediately after eating them.

Kongs, Beggin' Strips and an occasional huge bone specially prepared by the butcher is all she gets outside of meals.

[EFerrari]

20. I'd watch the bones because they can do the same thing -- get stuck

in little pieces. My girls LOVE bones but if things go wrong, they can go really wrong. :(

[hippywife]

25. I think bones are only a problem

if they are from something cooked and have become brittle. We give our dog raw soup bones occasionally and she finds tons of raw bones out here on her own. I swear we could have reconstructed a whole cow from the huge bones in our yard a couple of years ago. (They were already dead. She didn't kill them. )

:hi:

[EFerrari]

26. That sounds right to me!

:hi:

[hunter]

19. Our dogs bury them in the backyard to putrefy.

Later they bring them into the house as "gifts." The soggier they are and the worse they smell, the better the gift, and the better they taste.

Our dogs also roll around in dead things, slimy compost, and shit. And then they come up smiling and wagging their tails like it's the best thing in the world to smell like that, and they want to share their joy by rubbing against you.

Dogs can be disgusting, but they are amazingly happy creatures who always want to play.

[EFerrari]

21. It's usually my cats that bring me things like mice butts

to remind me of the wonderful cycle of life.

:rofl:

[S n o w b a l l]

24. No

They're bad. They don't digest. I do, however, give my dogs pig ears. They got the approval from my vet so I'm assuming they're ok.

[Pharlo]

27. Very seldom.

Melia and Cody like them, Corki not so much. She just lets Melia have hers, then guilts me into something else because she doesn't like them. They all like Greenies, so that is what they usually get.

I have the same problem with the heavy rubber taste of the Kongs. Melia will eat them Corki and Cody won't. (Notice a theme here? Yes, Melia eats pretty much everything.)

The biggest problem I have with anything I get for The Damn Mutts' chewing pleasure is finding stuff made in a 'safe' country. They can NOT have chewies where the item 'or some contents' are from any South American country or China. They process the chew toys (rawhide, pigs ears, etc) in formaldehyde. If the treats are not made in the US, Canada, or Europe, The Damn Mutts do NOT get them. And, don't let yourself be fooled by the 'distributed by' notice. Many times that will be large and prominently displayed and list a reputable (read 'on my list of safe countries') point of origin. But, if you continue looking, you find that they (or some of the contents) were manufactured in an 'unsafe' country. However, other than the country of origin issue, I've never had a problem with rawhides.

The Kongs are nice, if your dog will chew them. If you find they clean the peanut butter out of the Kong too fast, put the peanut butter inside then freeze it before you give it to your dog. When I had dogs who were willing to chew the rubber, braunsweiger worked really good too.

[femmocrat]

28. No. I don't think they are safe.

My female pup threw up when she had them. And I read somewhere that the processing on the cheap ones is bad for them somehow.

We use kongs stuffed with goodies instead. Keeps them busy for awhile and I know what is in them.

[Jamastiene]

30. Not any more.

We used to let our dogs have them. One day, my now deceased miniature chocolate poodle, Dennis, got the rawhide chewed down to a rather small size. He tried to swallow it and it got stuck. It was horrendous. I spent half the night digging around in his throat to get all the icky stringy pieces of it out so he could breathe again. The trip to the vet to double check the next morning was no fun either.

Also, the most fights broke out over who had the soppiest, slimiest, and wettest rawhide. Whoever got theirs nice and gross first had to fight the other dogs to keep it. ("But Mommmmy, theirs is better than mine. It's all slimy and juicy." Just like kids) I broke up more fights that way than I care to remember.

Now, I don't have any dogs, but if I did, (especially if I had more than one), I would not give them rawhides. I'd buy them a Kong instead. It's better for them and gives them something to do...assuming it was only one dog. If it was more than one dog, I'd just give each a nice crunchy treat every once in a while and hope they didn't fight like kids over the "best" one. :eyes:

[likesmountains 52]

31. My friend's dog got one stuck crosswise in her mouth and she couldn't close her mouth..

she had to get anesthesia to relax her jaw so the vet could remove it..