marrow bones--is that what I got?

[moondog]

OK Caroline, I have a knucklebone question for you. Since I have to remove the marrow before I give bones to Luna, do you think I could get it all out of the knuckle part? I've got two huge knucklebones in the freezer that I had the butcher give me along with the center cut bones, to give to my daughter for her dog. I'd love to give one to Luna, but I'm just not sure how deep the marrow goes, since I can only access it from one opening. I think I need an anatomy lesson! Got any clues?

[CarolineS]

From what I've seen as Maggie is eating one, there is no marrow inside the knuckle part. I'd just check the bottom end of the bone, the thin cut end, and see if there's any marrow there. When you scrape it out, you'll know you've come to the end of the marrow because instead of scraping out something soft, it will start to get harder and grittier.

As long as I do that, Maggie doesn't have any digestive upset. Be forewarned though, after eating most of a knuckle bone, the poops are going to be quite hard and a yellowy white color. With our two, seeing them almost constipated is a treat! ;)

[BarryMcD]

Well, let it be known from my post above that I am King of the Marrow Bones, and obviously a person with too little to do! :)

Actually, I have four dogs, two are Rotts and one a 3 month old pup, so chewing has become my area of study!

Soapie... Regarding cooked steak bones, I'd avoid any bone that is thin, long and breakable. If a strong man (no sexist implications intended) could grab the ends of the meatless bone and snap it, even with a little help from slamming it into the kitchen counter, then I would never give it to a dog. Any bone that resembles a stick--long and slender--is not good.

The types of bone you get in cut steaks (T-Bones, Porterhouse bones, etc.) are relatively porous (weak), and are long and thin, like a stick, making them easy to snap, and they have sharp edges. The amount of power a Rottweiler can apply with its jaw is more than enough to chomp these bones in half or worse split them longitudinally. Then down the throat they go--or worse, maybe not!

Marrow bones are dense, hard, thick, wide, and round. All these qualities make them very stable. My Rotts will chip away at the edges sometimes, creating bone dust or tiny flakes, but I've never seen any dog break one in half or bite off a large enough chunk to do any harm.

Knuckle bones are also rather porous--not that hard and able to flake apart--but they work because they are compact in shape (not long, thin and stick-like) so they just sort of fall apart in tiny pieces rather than split into large chunks.

BTW: My dogs love compressed rawhide rings. I don't know if they sell them in your area, but they are rings of various diameters (the 6" is my Shadow's favorite thing in the world!) that are made of natural rawhide, but they are compressed in a special machine to make them so dense that they take weeks too chew apart. They come in bone shapes, too. They would be my best alternative suggestion to a real bone.

Barry the Bone King


(The BoneHead, according to my wife!)

[Soapie&Buddy'sMom]

Thanks, more good "bone" information. :)

Actually, my neighbor is the one who gives my dogs bones. I don't eat meat so a cooked bone is not a leftover that would usually transpire in my kitchen.
My neighbor gives my dogs leftover bones and I haven't really paid THAT much attention to them, but usually the dogs eat the whole bone. Maybe it is a miracle that they haven't had an injury yet, but they have been fine. Usually they get the bones right around meal time so maybe the food has been a buffer. I will have to stop this because I haven't heard one person or read one thing that says cooked beef (or pork, or whatever meat they are) bones are okay. If something happened to one of my dogs because of my carelessness I would never forgive myself.

Thanks again for all the great bone info!