Do hard bones wreck tooth enamel?

[LuvMyAbby&Kaela]

Abby loves these stuffed real beef bones I buy at the pet place. But will they ruin the enamel on her teeth? Does anyone know? She sounds like she is grinding on a big rock.

On a side note we are winding down....Friday is the last day of holidays and we are heading back Saturday morning. It went way too fast.

[Janie]

Karen, do you know if it is true that if you freeze these bones for 3 months it will kill the bacteria so you don't have to cook them.?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Janie, I think that once they thaw, you could still get bacteria in the marrow & any fat or meat...the bacteria that came on the bone would be killed by freezing, but I think new bacteria would grow in the marrow if it was left lying around.

[Debbie and Thomas]

We give our GD marrow bones fresh from the butcher-they are raw and have a little fat and a tiny wee but of meat on them. We give it to him raw so far and after several hours of munching on it I throw it out when we go to bed. Next time I buy these I will boil them a bit so he can save it for the next day. We have given him bones since he was about 5 mths old and he is now 10 mths old. I never thought to boil them because I thought that cooked bones could be dangerous. What I mean by a cooked bone is like a bone from a big roast beef that one might cook, so it becomes brittle and pices or chunks could be ingested and seriously harm the dog. But if Karen says they can be boiled or neuked, i trust her knowledge. After all, some of the marrow bones we buy have blood on them!! Yechh. I cannopt believe the butcher actually charges 2.00 for a bag of three of these things. What happened to the good old days when butches gave these away??

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

The only ones I can vouch for are the marrow bones...those you can cook for hours and they still will not soften or become brittle or splinter. The marrow bones are the cows' leg bones, and are the hardest bones there are. I'm pretty sure they're not the ones in a beef roast, but I only buy boneless roasts, so I'm not sure what those are. I buy the marrow bones from the butcher.

[Debbie and Thomas]

I'm sure the bones we buy at the butcher are leg bones too. The only roast beef we have ever had with bones in it is a prime rib, with those delicious rib bones on it. I would never give these to the dog though-to brittle. Thks.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

I buy the sterilized bones at the pet store and spread some peanut butter inside them when I really want to keep them occupied for a while. I have put peanut butter in and given them immediately to the dogs, put peanut butter in and frozen them for later, and we have empty bones laying around. All three of my guys love to chew on these bones and only once in many many years has a bone broken.

[StaceyW]

if I wanted to buy some sterilized one - what do i look for?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

They're sold in pet supply stores, where you find all the rawhides & other chew treats. They're just straight white bones, a few inches long, like a hollow pipe, filled with various rubbery looking stuff, wrapped in clear plastic with labels stuck on. They're sold individually.
Here's an example of one kind:
http://www.petfooddirect.com/store/product_detail.asp?pf_id=2031282...

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

You can buy them filled or empty. I usually buy empty and put stuff in when I want. They are cheaper empty.