At Last! The True Wolf Experts Weigh In On The RMB Issue, and Guess What????

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Wolves and Bones
In order to gather information about the practice of feeding bones to canines, ThePetCenter contacted experts in the care, management and feeding of wolves. These experts were asked about the safety concerns related to bone consumption. Their responses, exactly as ThePetCenter received them, are listed below. All responses are included... none were left out or edited. After reading the replies from these experts you may draw your own conclusions.

ThePetCenter asked the following question via email:

Hello,
May I request your expert opinion that as a veterinarian I could put to good use? There seems to be a new idea in vogue regarding the feeding of raw, whole bones to dogs in an effort to promote optimum nutritional health. My belief as a veterinarian, and having seen the damage a bone foreign body can do to the GI tract, is that finely ground bones are safe but whole raw or cooked bones should not be fed to dogs.
Part of the basis for the belief that raw, whole bones can and should be fed to dogs is the notion that wolves, foxes and other wild canines consume raw, whole bones and it is a safe and natural aspect of nutritional intake and can be done without regard to foreign body problems. If the wolves do it, pet dogs can too.
My questions are these:
1.) Is there data to indicate that sometimes wild canines do indeed suffer from bone foreign body GI trouble?
2.) Should raw, whole bones be fed to any canine ( wolves, coyotes and foxes included ) without regard to any perceived dangers?
3.) Do Raw whole bones provide excellent nutritional value to canines?
If you respond, may I quote your response?
Thank you very much for your input on this important domestic-dog feeding topic.
Cordially,
T J Dunn, Jr. DVM
Member: American Academy of Veterinary Nutrition
International Sled Dog Veterinary Medical Association

... and the nine e-mail responses are listed below:

Go here to read the responses. I think this will open quite a few eyes, and maybe answer some questions for a lot of you.
http://www.thepetcenter.com/imtop/wolfexrep.html

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Very interesting. Thank you for bringing this information to the rest of us.

[Leslie and Halas]

I read the responses about fur being around the bones that wolves eat in the wild. Maybe this explains why some of our doodles tear up their stuffies. They're just trying to comfortably pass the bones we're giving them. LOL.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

All joking aside, that is the part that I found the most interesting; the raw bones people buy at the store don't have a protective covering on them. I just couldn't understand how, if the animal can crunch up those bones with their teeth, there wouldn't be sharp, potentially dangerous pieces. Now we know that there are, but in the wild, they have a "protective covering." I also noticed that many of the experts pointed out differences not only between between wolves and dogs, but also between individual breeds of dogs. I realize these are only opinions, but they are opinions from people who are actually involved in the day-to-day care & feeding of wolves. Who would know better? To me, this is saying that there is really no comparison between a wild animal eating another wild animal, complete with fur, and a house pet eating a bare bone from the store.

[Leslie and Halas]

I agree. I had never thought of that either, but it does make sense that the fur, skin, etc. would create a protective covering.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Amanda, the marrow bones are perfectly safe; the RMB's that this is referring to is a method of feeding advocated by followers of an Australian veterinarian named Tom Lonsdale, and it is rather controversial. The followers of this method are almost fanatical in their devotion, but for me, there have always been a lot of questions about the science behind it. Anyway, marrow bones are not considered to be RMB's (raw meaty bones), because they are too hard to actually be eaten. Quinn will never be able to break or crush a marrow bone, so no worries there. They're good for cleaning his teeth and occupying him.
I usually microwave the bones to get most of the marrow softened up and then give it to Jack separately from the bone itself, but Jack has immune system issues. The freezing kills the bacteria anyway, and I don't think salmonella would develop after a day or two after you give it to Quinn. I used to give the raw frozen bones to my miniature poodle, and they would lie around for weeks with no ill-effects.

[Sharon, Boo & Cricket]

Wow, that is really interesting. I never thought about the "fur" aspect. Definitely food for thought (no pun intended, haha.)