I want to go to the butcher this week and get some raw bones for Bacchus. What are some bone types to ask for that are safe and that huskies love?

How long do raw bones keep btw? Should I toss after x amount of days if Bacchus has not chewed them up?

Hmmmm, well I am a big bone giver, They do great things for our dogs. I would be around your pup when giving, and I will give you some examples as to why............My husky girl eats bones very well, she will chew them up and processes them just fine. My gsd girl breaks the bone down just enough to swallow, so not small enough to breakdown in her digestive tract, luckily she has always thrown them back up and I clean it up, some dogs do not throw them up and may cause a blockage. So you have to observe him. So with my gsd I will take away once the meat and sinew is gone and before she starts chomping. My husky girl I taught her to chew, but I got her at a very young age, so maybe that is why she can eat bone and my gsd can't, got my gsd at 10 weeks and my husky at 5 weeks. Anywho......I prefer rib bones and the T that forms the T-bone, quite often I will buy T-bones and debone them myself and I eat the meat and the girls get the bone. Butchers quite often will have these since some people request them deboned anyways, and also there is a lot of bone left over from that cut. I also use the bone that comes from the NY strip cut, and the Ribeye cut. Any non weight bearing bone, prefer beef, is fine. Though beef is the hardest bone and then pork, however pork has a better chance at splintering, which you do not want, and is richer overall, which may cause belly upset. You can also try oxtail section, and soup bones, the only advice on the soup bones is that they are formed in a circle and can lodge around their lower jaw, so must be extra careful with round bones. I hope I helped you out and again it does a fabulous job at cleaning their teeth.

Renee,

thanks for your post. Any issues with bone marrow ever going rancid? Bacchus doesn't have all his permanent teeth in yet so I don't think he will be able to chew them up completely. My main concern is how long I can keep a raw bone laying around like that without it causing food poisoning for the little guy.

Sorry forgot to answer that part, lol......in the wild wolves will cache their food for another day, dogs digestive system is much shorter than humans, meaning they can acquire stuff that we can get sick on where dogs wont. A good example is any dog food recalls for samonella. It is more for the benefit for the human, we can get it pretty easily, with dogs the salmonella moves too quickly thru the system for the dog to get sick. With that in mind, it may bother you because of the smell vs it being unsafe for the pup. Miya used to bury her bones and dig them up a few days later and eat, that's outside here in Texas where it is generally warmer than many other places here in the US, and it never bothered her. As long as he is healthy and know known tummy issues I see no actual problem, the smell if left inside may indeed bother you, hahahaha. because of my gsd eating everything, and not chewing properly, I do toss the bones once they are done eating any meat. If you want to you can put them in something like a zip loc and put them in the fridge if he doesn't consume all of the meat. When I buy in bulk I freeze my bones. And that is also a yummy treat. especially in the summer frozen raw bones are the best to my girls and it does make them work on them longer vs refrigerated.

Also forgot to mention, I believe they would naturally dry out if all meat and sinew is gone. My gsd found one of my huskies bones from probably 2 years ago and it was perfectly fine the marrow just dried out. Kinda similar to antlers, they are safe indefinitely as long as no fat, meat, sinew, the marrow just dries out and is perfectly safe and fine.

I keep them in the freezer, the dogs get a new one daily only because my butcher leaves quite a bit of meat, the dogs know this and they want their meat. They get picked up and tossed only cause hubby didn't want to look at them.