eating the knuckle bone days two and three

Penny worked on her big knuckle bone for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon.

And then, in the evening, she began hacking and coughing, pacing around from spot to spot and salivating. After a while I rang the emergency vet and they said I could come any time during the night.

I decided to stay up and watch her, because I thought perhaps she was nauseous - I did until about one in the morning and felt she was sleeping comfortably at that stage. I woke her and took her outside in case she wanted to eat grass, but she only spent a few minutes letting the possums know who's boss and went back inside.

Was the marrow in the bone too rich for her? I had a look around the net, but didn't find any answers. And I did do what Hsin-Yi suggested, on Honey's blog, which was to get the butcher to cut out the hard middle part of the bone where most of the marrow is.

Well, today she dug up the bone and worked on it again for about an hour (followed by fifteen minutes of deciding where to bury it and doing so).

So, here's hoping she's not uncomfortable tonight...

a dog eats a knuckle bone to clean her teeth

After I read Honey's post about knuckle bones being good for cleaning dogs' teeth, a mystery was solved. I'd heard about knuckle bones but didn't know what they were. But Hsin-Yi, Honey's human, explained that they are the knobbly ends of marrow bones, with the hard, potentially tooth-breaking middle cut out.

Since Penny did break a tooth when she was young, and unfortunately had to have it removed, I'm nervous of bones. But we give them to Penny because we realise the value of bones as part of a dog's diet. Usually we stick to the soft brisket bones of beef or chicken bones such as necks, but I decided to take Hsin-Yi's recommendation and try Penny out on a knuckle bone.

She worked on it for about thirty-five minutes, actually getting quite puffed with all the exercise, and then buried it in the backyard for later retrieval. I was pleased at the way she took weight on her back leg during the long eating session, and also at the way she walked down the steps to the garden. Her limp was more apparent on the way up the stairs after she'd buried the bone, but we do realise she may limp for as much as six months after her surgery on the cruciate ligament.

Here's a video with the story of the Magnificent Huge Bone.

Eating marrow bones

Stanislaw posted a picture recently of him eating a marrow bone and I asked about it. The reply was so interesting that I'm copying it here from the comments section of my blog, where he explained about his human's feeding of these bones. You might like to pop over to his post to see the pictures. Here's what he told me:

My marrow bone was a 2.5-inch tube (about) filled with marrow and with meat attached. Mom picks bones that are too large for us to swallow, too thick for us to break bits from, small enough for us to paw and play with, and bones that have a moderate amount of marrow inside (some of HUGE amounts).

We've never seen bones sliced lengthwise. I'd imagine that would make it too easy to eat the marrow and would take away the challenge. Marrow is so rich that too much too fast, and too much in general, can really upset your tummy. Normally we get a marrow bone and are allowed 1/2 of it. Then it goes into a baggy in the fridge and is saved for the next day.

Yes, we're wearing our snoods to keep our ears out of our food. Our ears are so long with such thick, curly fur that they can get really gross really fast when we're eating our meals!

Hope that answers your questions! Let me know if you ever get to enjoy a juicy marrow bone!