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Puppy Culture Potluck Series

You bring the topics, we bring the discussion.
No time to read our Puppy Culture Discussion group every day? No problem! Now you can get highlights of the discussion group in podcast format.
I’m going to be grabbing questions from the discussion group that sparked interesting discussion and talk about them on air.
Who knows, some guests may drop in as well…

Episode 19 - Marrow Bones: Are they Safe to Give to Your Dog?

6/18/2024

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This week’s question is about marrow bones:‌
​
“Looking for advice and information on giving puppies bones. I've heard so much conflicting information about the benefits and risks, but I'm thoroughly confused. A dog dentist once told me not to give my dog anything to chew on that I couldn't dent with my thumbnail. Yet here I see hooves and raw meaty bones being offered. Thoughts?”
In this episode, I lay out:
  • The risk and benefits of giving your puppy or dog marrow bones
  • The relative risk for different dogs and breeds
  • The factors you should take into account when deciding whether or not to give your dog a marrow bone.
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To read the transcript for this episode, click the link below.
EPISODE 19 - TRANSCRIPT
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist and this is a Puppy Culture potluck podcast. You bring the topics, we bring the conversation.

Today's topic is marrow bones. We get a lot of questions about the safety of marrow bones as a chew project to give your puppy or your dog. So let me read you the question.

Looking for advice and information on giving puppies bones. I've heard so much conflicting information about the benefits and risks that I'm thoroughly confused. A dog dentist once told me not to give my dog anything to chew on that I couldn't dent with my thumbnail. Yet here I see hooves and raw meaty bones being offered. Thoughts?

So let's talk about marrow bones. There is no one answer to this question about the safety of marrow bones.

It really depends on the age and chewing strength and thoughtfulness of chewing of your breed. Many people object to marrow bones because they've been told that weight bearing bones run the risk of fracturing teeth. And indeed, canine dentists often advise against marrow bones. But if you think about it, canine dentists only see the bad outcomes from marrow bones.

I would imagine if you took into account the entire population of dogs that are given marrow bones, the actual risk for your dog is probably quite small. At least statistically. I have not had a fractured tooth for any of my dogs in 30 years that I've been giving my strong chewing bull terriers marrow bones.

But it definitely could be a consideration, if you're in a breed that's prone to teeth fractures, because I do think some breeds probably are more prone than others. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that.

I'm sure that diet and individual genetics play a role in this. There are certain in humans for instance, genetics, where teeth can be more likely to to fracture.

So I don't know. I haven't found any studies, but I would imagine that some dog's teeth are stronger than others. And I would imagine nutrition and prenatal nutrition and whatever the puppies or the dam has been fed her whole life would have an influence on this.

So the risk is probably not equal for all dogs. At least that would be my hypothesis.

What I do know from the science out there is that individual genetics and breed aside, the risk of dental fracture appears to go up in a linear fashion as the size and strength of the dog increases. One study of 492 dogs that were presented for dental fractures found that 75% of them were large breed dogs. 25% were medium to small breed dogs and none of them were toy breed dogs.

So again, the risk appears to go up not unpredictably with the size and the strength of the dog. Makes sense. Teeth are teeth. The Rottweiler has a bite force that is 800% more forceful than the Papillon, but the Rottweilers teeth are made of the same material as the Papillon. Sure, the teeth are bigger and stronger, but the actual molecular material that the teeth are made of is the same.

And it makes sense that the larger the dog, the more risk of fracture. By the way, for those of you that are taken aback by that 800% number, a link to the study that talks about the variation of bite force between breeds, I'll put that up on the show page. By the way, in that study, they did classify the reasons as why those teeth had fractured, and the vast majority of the fractured teeth involved something other than chewing a bone.

Mostly it was playing or carrying a rock or something like that. So while I'm not completely discounting the possibility that your dog could fracture a tooth on a marrow bone because it is possible, I'm going to say that I think the risk has been a bit sensationalized. And, you know, the fact is that dogs and puppies especially need to chew and they need to chew hard in order for proper bone modeling.

Jaw, bone density and shape has been found to be positively correlated with chewing hard objects, that's in rodent studies, and the connection between chewing and bone modeling in humans is well-established. I mean, just Google chewing and bone modeling, 100 citations will pop up so humans and dogs have to chew and chew hard. In fact, sidebar, scientists hypothesize that a lot of the dental problems that modern humans have are because we don't chew hard foods anymore.

Not sure that I want to be part of the pilot program that goes back to eating nuts and grains and nothing else. But, you know, there it is. You do need to chew. You need to chew. The dog needs to chew. And I'm not sure that chewing only things that could be dented with a fingernail is going to get that job done of proper bone modeling, particularly in puppies.

Just to clarify, it's not just puppies that need to chew and chew hard. It's dogs as well, adult dogs. Because if if you don't chew hard, then and this is true from human dental science, you start losing bone. That's why when, for instance, you maybe lose one tooth or you don't have good occlusion, you'll start losing bone because there's nothing to oppose that other tooth and put pressure on it because it's the pressure that triggers you to remodel bone constantly.

We're constantly remodeling that bone. So it's an, it's super important for puppies because we want them to develop correctly, but it's important for dogs to, to maintain what we've built during puppy hood. And I'm just going to say the advice not to give anything that you can't dent with your fingernail is madness.

With a strong chewer like a bull terrier. If you can dent it with your fingernail, they can choke on it. And if it's possible for them to choke on it, they'll find a way to do it. So softer chewing items are a hard no for us, but maybe they're on the menu if you have a toy poodle. But then again, if you have a toy poodle, that dog is unlikely to crack a tooth on a marrow bone.

So maybe you don't really need to worry about it. That's your call. What's more of a concern for me with the marrow bones is the richness of the marrow, which can lead to loose stools. Marrow is a super food and it's extremely good for puppies and dogs. But in moderation. I know a lot of people write in on these threads and say, well, it's just fat.

And yes, marrow has a lot of fat in it, but it's got a lot of other stuff, which that's a whole podcast in itself. But it is an amazingly healthy food for your puppy or your dog. But again, too much of it is going to give them diarrhea. So for my adult dogs, I freeze the marrow bones so they can't get a ton out at once and I just take it away from them when I feel they've had enough.

And then for my puppies because it's hard for them to chew it and not very attractive for them to chew if it's frozen. I let them have the marrow bones for a short period of time and then I take them away before the puppies can have too much marrow. So I want to read this, this comment that somebody wrote in on on this thread and she said, this probably isn't an issue with bull terrier puppies, but long headed breeds should be careful about marrow bones.

You just haven't lived until you've used a dremel to remove marrow bone from a Borzoi’s lower jaw, zero stars, definitely do not recommend. So there you go. That's another consideration. If you've got a Sheltie or a Borzoi, maybe you don't want to give them a marrow bone.

So let's sum this up on a risk benefit spreadsheet. Let's do a virtual spreadsheet. Marrow negatives; possible fractured tooth, possible getting jaw stuck, possible diarrhea.

Positive of marrow; proper bone modeling of the jaw, proper teeth setting into the jaw, no choking hazard and a super food.

So there it is. I hope that positioned it for you at least. You know, as with anything, the answer is usually, it depends and marrow bones are a good example of that.

If you liked this podcast, you'll love our puppy owner course available at madcapuniversity.com. If you're a breeder check out our breeder course also available at madcapuniversity.com. Breeders, if you want to get your puppy owners started the right way, check out our bulk discounts for multiple copies of our puppy course at puppyculture.com.

Well that's it for this time. Thanks for listening. Bye bye.

​​​​​​​​​​​Referenced Courses and Titles

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BUY NOW
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BUY NOW
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BUY NOW
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BUY NOW

Further reading and citations to the referenced studies and findings

Tooth Fracture Evaluation and Endodontic Treatment in Dogs​​​ - ResearchGate
​I. Capík, V. Ledecký, A. Ševčík (Jun 2000)
Forceful Mastication Activates Osteocytes and Builds a Stout Jawbone​​​​ - nature.com
​Masamu Inoue, Takehito Ono, Yoshitaka Kameo, Fumiyuki Sasaki, Takashi Ono, Taiji Adachi & Tomoki Nakashima (Mar 2019)
Bite Force and its Relationship to Jaw Shape in Domestic Dogs​​​ - journals.biologists.com
Colline Brassard, Marilaine Merlin, Claude Guintard, Elodie Monchâtre-Leroy, Jacques Barrat, Nathalie Bausmayer, Stéphane Bausmayer, Adrien Bausmayer, Michel Beyer, André Varlet, Céline Houssin, Cécile Callou, Raphaël Cornette, Anthony Herrel (Aug 2020)
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    Author

    Jane Messineo Lindquist (Killion) is the director of "Puppy Culture the Powerful First Twelve Weeks That Can Shape Your Puppies' Future" as well as the author of "When Pigs Fly: Training Success With Impossible Dogs" and founder of Madcap University.

    Jane has had Bull Terriers since 1982 and she and her husband, Mark Lindquist, breed Bull Terriers under the Madcap kennel name.

    Her interests include dog shows, dog agility, gardening, and any cocktail that involves an infused simple syrup.

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  • Home
  • Puppy Culture Potluck Podcast
  • Other Podcasts
  • About Madcap Radio
    • Our Founder, Jane