Eating Buried Stuff.

[Dory the Doted One]

Okay....

Dory, the sweetheart that she is has a few quirks.....

Vegie/meat mix is an EVENING meal...never to be consumed at Breakfast. Offering it at breakfast gets sad looks of dejection, and long sighs of woe.

Chicken wings...are eaten with gusto...she tried to swallow one whole once. Decided that was not the best course of action. I remained calm.

Ditto...chicken frames.

Smaller off-cuts of lamb are eaten with relish...and sometimes dragged into the house to be deposited on various housemates beds should they foolishly leave the door open. Or little bits are left at each bedroom door...she likes to share the love.

Larger bones, Pigs Ears and Jerky sticks....instant burial. Which I don't have a problem with as SUCH...cept I was rather hoping she'd skip with delight at what a fantastic owner I am for bringing home cool treats. Nooooo...we get frantic looks as we dart out the back door. Surrepticious glances over the shoulder to be sure no one sees her hiding space. Wish I had a video camera!

But now to the point of this whole thing......

Do you let your dogs eat the bones they have buried? I haven't noted that Dory has reeked of week old dead bone. And trust me I would know...she likes to clean the beard after each feed.

I haven't been fussed. I figure she'd be sensible about these things.

But what would you consider too 'disgusting' and 'unsafe' to eat?

[megan_]

Fergus loves burying his bones - no matter how hungry he is. He wags his tail, but cries, digs, re-digs etc.

I once caught him eating a maggot infested chicken bone with crawling "meat". Disgusted me. Delighted him.

[Garden Girl]

We've been in the our hous a bit under 12 months - when we first moved in anytime we did gardening we found literally dozens of old bones the previous owner must have given his dog. Before we got our pup we dig a massive clean up of the garden to remove all the bones we could find - there were hundreds - and that probably being conservative.

When Soap came home though and once he figured it out he would still find old bones - really he would dig up at least one a day - and we now have another little pup and they still find old bones - maybe one a week. Luckily they havent found the owners old dog who is buried in the garden somewhere, our neighbour told us.

I always take the bones off them - they are so old and brittle and sharp - but I dont always realise they have one till they've been munching on it for a while. So - so far no problems - they do have upset tummies sometimes but I cant be sure its related to the bones.

Our breeder told us when we giveour dog bones to take them away if they've been left in the sun and baked hard. But the dog I used to have years ago would keep old bones till they were full of maggots and then eat them - disgusting but she was fine.