FDA findings for dogs/bones

[Sarah83]

I would love to know what these "safe alternatives" are.

Probably things like rawhide chews, nylabones and the toys you can get for "power chewers", those are what I generally get recommended. Rupert chews chunks off the nylabones which I'm not really comfortable with and I've not fed rawhide since it made him ill. It was all brown and sort of crystallized inside, the other one we had was the same way. I've not found a toy yet that can stand up to Ruperts chewing regardless of how tough it claims to be and he seems to NEED to chew so I'll keep on giving bones. He seems content to chew on a bone for a while then wander off and sleep whereas a rawhide, nylabone or toy he'd keep on at until it was gone or destroyed.

[Nettle]

Yes, nylabones, rawhide chews and chewie toys are a lot less safe than raw bones. What we need are vets that sell raw bones


Some (approximate) figures from my vet:

When he started his practice about 20 years ago, he had 1,000 clients.

Having got most of his clients on to raw feeding and natural remedies, with drugs and surgery as a last resort, his patients became so damned healthy that he saw each one an average of once a year and had built up to four thousand clients without any increas in staff. The pets just weren't getting ill.

Now he works on referral only (except for lucky people like me who can see him any time).