Feeding Bones to Dogs

I have never seen any side effects with our 10 year yellow lab (except extreme excitement whenever he sees them!, haha). However, you do have to know what kinds of bones are good and which are bad. There are some bones that can harm, or even kill your dog. Cooked bones are usually dangerous because the cooking process makes bones more brittle, which increases the likelihood they might splinter and cause internal injury to your dog.

The FDA (in 2010) listed these risks for cooked bones
-Broken teeth
-Mouth or tongue issues
-Bone getting looped around the dog's lower jaw
-Bone getting stuck in the esophagus
-Bone getting stuck in the windpipe
-Bone getting stuck in stomach
-Bone getting stuck in intestines
-Constipation due to bone fragments
-Severe bleeding from the rectum
-Peritonitis (a difficult to treat bacterial infection of the abdomen)

Raw bones are usually the safest outlet! That is what we have always used.