Dog getting sick after eating raw bones

Pinklady11

After reading up alot about the RAW diet and all the positive feedback from people who have started their dogs on it, I wanted to give it a go with my Lab. So I decided to try some raw bones from the butcher with him first and needless to say he was delighted with them!

I was just giving 1 a day but a few hours after he ate it he started throwing up. There was a lot of pea sized bone in it so I don't know if maybe he wasn't chewing it enough? I have stopped giving him the bones and just kept him on his normal food for now. Could it be a case where bones just don't agree with him?

meoklmrk91

Kept happening with my fella too so I stopped giving them to him. He didn't seem to have any issues with say a leg of chicken but with the large bones from the butcher he had this issue.

tk123

You might have just given too much too soon. It can take a while for them to build up the enzymes to be able to break the bone down.. that said he could have just scoffed it down too quick lol! :P You could maybe start off with something easier to digest like chicken legs or backs. If you think he's scoffing it down I'd avoid wings unless you break/cut them up - my dog tends to swallow them whole so I bash them with a mallet to make sure the bones are broke lol!

TooManyDogs

What kind of bones were they? The really big beef bones aren't really meant to be consumed, more gnawed on as a chew toy. You're better starting with non-weight bearing bones like chicken wings or backs, then chicken legs and so on.

maringo

Pieces of bones can lodge in/puncture the dog's innards and cause huge problems. Only bone my dog gets is the large marrowbone that he can't get splinters off but can enjoy nibbling and carrying round. Spends hours on it but never splinters. I give him all chicken leftover bits except bones. Was told that by a vet years ago.

Rommie

maringo wrote: »

Pieces of bones can lodge in/puncture the dog's innards and cause huge problems. Only bone my dog gets is the large marrowbone that he can't get splinters off but can enjoy nibbling and carrying round. Spends hours on it but never splinters. I give him all chicken leftover bits except bones. Was told that by a vet years ago.

Cooked bones splinter and can cause problems. Raw bones don't, they are much softer and don't have the 'glazing' on them.

OP- one of my housemates dogs used to throw up little bits of bone the first few times she had them, the boys had no problem, digesting them. It only lasted about a week, since then she has been fine and doesn't have any problems with bones now. Like tk123 said, probably just his system being unable to process the bones just yet

sotisme

Hi, hope I'm not taking over the thread, but would anyone be able to tell me why my dogs poos are always white and hard after eating raw bones from the butcher? He's a cavalier king charles, so maybe it's bone overdose as he's a small dog?!

Rommie

Chalky and white poos usually mean too much calcium in the diet

sotisme

Rommie wrote: »

Chalky and white poos usually mean too much calcium in the diet

Hmm.. But it's only after he eats bones, do they contain a lot of calcium? Its like they pass through jot digested properly
Thanks

borderlinemeath

sotisme wrote: »

Hmm.. But it's only after he eats bones, do they contain a lot of calcium? Its like they pass through jot digested properly
Thanks

I'd far rather those type of poos than the wet sloppy big ones. Much better for the anal glands as well.

Pinklady11

Yeah it was the big beef bones I gave him. It was taking him about an hour or so to eat one so I wouldn't consider that scoffing. Feel bad for him because he really did enjoy them!! Will try chicken and see how he gets on with it.

Thanks for all the advice.

Rommie

sotisme wrote: »

Hmm.. But it's only after he eats bones, do they contain a lot of calcium? Its like they pass through jot digested properly
Thanks

Of course, bones are full of calcium after all, i think they're something like 60% calcium. They are being digested, but that is the result of a lot of bone. It's nothing to be worried about as long as he is passing them, but dogs can get a bit bunged up if they have too many bones too often

SillyMangoX

I had to help give an enema in a dog who was impacted from eating too many bones.... Bleugh!!! They really do get rightly bunged up if they eat too many!

Assassins Creed

My lot had white poos when i started feeding raw a few months back. Started on chicken wings, easier for them to crunch the bones down. I stayed away from legs for a few weeks until i was happy they were crushing the wings well enough. The white poos eventually lessened. This i was told, is that by eating raw they have to build up different enzymes in the stomach at first. A tip i was given is to always include bones as it helps to bind them. Meat on its own will run through mine. If there was any raw beef on the bone you gave your dog, this could have caused the vomiting. Beef i was told is not great at first when starting raw, salmon or chicken was recommended to me first. After a few weeks introduce the beef in small amounts, but stick with the wings in the feed as well.

The Sweeper

My dog is entirely raw fed and has been for nearly three years. Staple for him are chicken wings - he has a whole wing, made up of the three joints (tip, middle section, then the piece that attaches to the body) with the meat and skin on. He doesn't chew them apart into pieces. He chews the entire wing, and the bones break up and crush down inside the meat and skin. He ends up swallowing the whole wing as a single piece, but he's crunched it up into a pulpy ball before he swallows it. He's a medium to large dog at about 30kgs.

On top of chicken wings he gets a variety of other things - cheap meat, pet meat (which is kangaroo because I'm in Australia), budget beef mince, lamb liver, lamb kidney, lamb heart, and beef liver, kidney and heart. Not every meal is balanced, as we aim for balance over time. He occasionally gets an egg, some cheese or a tin of sardines in his dinner. Every so often, if we're really busy, or going away, he gets dry dog food. When he eats dry food, he appears to do nothing but crap enormous, smelly turds, what feels like four times a day.

So the only bone he gets is chicken wing bones, but he gets four chicken wings in a meal.

The big bones from the butcher are for cleaning teeth and gnawing on, not for eating whole.

boomerang

My girl got a slab fracture of her carnassial tooth from eating one of the big beef shin bones. I didn't give any of those type of bones after. I'd give her a lamb shank instead. She loved those and I'd take it off of her when she'd eaten all the cartilage and marrow so she wouldn't eat the leftover shards.

For some reason she had no problem eating any kind of mince but she couldn't keep meaty chicken parts down at all.