What can I give my dog to chew that will last more than a few minutes?

Question

I have a puppy (well, he's almost a year old) that destroys everything because when he's not crated, sleeping, or being entertained by nature, my other dog, or me, he wants/needs to be chewing on something.

We do a lot together (honestly), and he's very smart (probably why he's so easily bored), but I had a serious fracture of my lower leg a few months ago (two surgeries and more to come), and I'm still on walking/weightbearing restrictions, so I can't entertain him endlessly.

Bully sticks last only maybe 10 minutes; beef tendons last about two minutes. He has destroyed Tuffy toys, Kong products, and other things described as "indestructable".

And he swallows. Everything. When I was immobile, he found a very heavy-duty plastic bag and as I hobbled frantically to get it from him, he swallowed it. I thought for sure he was going to die of an obstruction (not for the first time.) A couple of days later, he passed the entire thing intact. Nothing will slow this dog down. I've even given him frozen marrow bones; they last about 15 minutes.

I'm thinking of rawhide, but I have never given rawhide to any of my dogs because I read bad things about it.

Is rawhide safe? Can someone suggest anything else?

Answer 1

Raw beef soup bones and long bones. The dog will spend days chewing them and not be able to finish them. You can keep them as long as you can tolerate having bones lying around. They're not ideal to have lying around the house, however. It may be possible to have one bone in the house at a time after any meat has been chewed off it.

Also things like pigs' trotters and ears (not processed).

The problem with rawhide is a lot of the packaged products are not natural and processed to a point that is alarming to make them look desirable to the owner. Also, if he's chewing through things rapidly, too much rawhide may cause him to become constipated. It was something I did feed decades ago. I'd be cautious now because of the processing and feed no chew that comes out of a package.

If you want a chew that can be chewed reasonably quickly, then brisket bones are ideal, depending on the dog they can last for 2o minutes to an hour (or longer for small dogs). The other thing is raw chicken pieces, but they are eaten quickly, but still good for teeth.

Disclaimer: avoid giving dogs cooked bones as they tend to splinter. Especially chicken bones.

Answer 2

In addition to an existing great answer, I would also suggest trying frozen, raw carrots.

A general idea behind this is to freeze a big, fat, juicy carrot and take advantage of its high water content. Water has relatively high enthalpy of fusion - which means that high in water content, frozen products - like vegetables - would require a lot of "effort" (in terms of heat transfer) to get melted, thus will remain hard and resistant for a longer time than fat-based ones, like the peanut butter you've mentioned in your comments.

Water ice is relatively hard, but it has low toughness - in other words, it's brittle. But in frozen vegetables like carrots, it's structurally similar to reinforced concrete - water ice is strengthened by the long fibers of plant tissue, thus making it both hard and tough / resistant to fracture - and, unlike frozen fat, it doesn't soften near it's melting point.

But it won't last forever, of course. The idea is that carrots are both cheap and low in caloric content, so they might be a good choice to buy you some cheap and safe chewing time for your pup.

However, regarding the safety - if you wanted to use this advice, please take into account the general chewing modus operandi of the pup in context of stick-shaped things. I guess that if he handles Bully Sticks fine, there wouldn't be a problem - but you've also mentioned that he tends to swallow a lot, so it is a little concerning for me. For that reason I'd advise to avoid small or baby carrots, which potentially could be instantly swallowed as a whole. In essence, if you wanted to apply this solution, please consider it in the context of potential choking hazard and supervise it in action.

Answer 3

My German Shepherd is similarly destructive with her toys (luckily only with those and not with stuff that isn't hers). I found that the best toys for her are a rope from the pet shop for playing tug of war and a ball with a hole in it and gills on the inside. You can put treats into the ball and the dog has to roll it around to get the treats out. And because of the gills this can take a while, especially with bigger treats. This ball has become her favourite toy and sometimes she'll even chew on it if it's empty. And because it's hollow, has a hole and is made out of rather thick rubber, it's really sturdy.

Answer 4

The cited times certainly look familiar to me...

Some more timings:

• pig ham bone: completely gone after about 1.5 h, except a mess of slobber and tiny bone chips. Not recommended (and in case of the organic free-range pig be careful because of pseudorabies). Eating the whole thing leads to an additional long digestive nap.
  These can be gotten here dried in a vacuum pack at a pet store.

• cow feet bone with joint capsule: intensive professional treatment for about 1.5 h: eating the sinews and joint capsule and peeling off the periosteum. Chewing off large parts of the joint cartilage. Over the next days, he'll get back to chew off some more of the cartilage into the bone - after the next 2 or 3 chewing bursts, the bone is not interesting to him any more (but it is to other dogs).
  This procedure is surprisingly clean (we still keep it outdoors), but loud if done on concrete or tiled underground. Wooden or laminate floor may be damaged in the procedure.

  Also available dried in a vacuum pack at pet stores.

• Whole cow feet as sawed off by the butcher (I'm in the lucky position that the butcher around the corner still actually slaughters himself). For me, this is the way to go:

  

  This is the state after a few hours of working time (2nd "session"). Dewclaws get chewed off early, but the foot has otherwise hardly any protruding ends at the beginning. Opening the hide and peeling the bone is substantial work for the dog :-)

  The dog may decide that the food would profit from underground seasoning, leading to the foot vanishing for a couple of weeks and then reappearing (to be found out by human nose...)

  Leftovers again go to fertilize the garden - though the small bones usually vanish (not sure whether he eats them - he did learn as pup that too big bones unchewed give a belly ache and need to be spit out again. Really. (= 2nd try failed as well)).

Answer 5

Consider buying a Recliner Chair for couple hundred bucks.

It sure kept my Husky busy for over 3 months! After 3 months:

• recliner was completely chewn through;
• all fabric ripped;
• all corners smoothed;
• the wood structure that holds whole thing together, took longest as that wood was about 5" thick;
• eventually, she chewed through that and recliner collapsed on itself.

The proud look, she gave me when she brought the 5" (12.5 cm) wooden piece was colossal. Little did I know, I would get same look few months later when she would chew through the door when I got the genius idea to lock her into bedroom for 15 minutes...

Answer 6

For Starters buy nothing that is not labeled Strong Chewer or even better Extreme Chewer, Nylabone Power chew seems to last the longest, but Circular toys seem to be even better. It is harder for her to get it back into her molars, where they seem to have the most power.

www.menards.com, this is where I get mine but I am sure you can order them from about anywhere. The fake sticks last a month, these last 3 months, and if they stop chewing on them they don't like the burs on them, I usually get mine wire brush out and scrap them off and get more out of them. But Kong balls that they can not swallow also are good chews as well.

Answer 7

Our pup has enjoyed coffee wood to chew on. He’s just entering his “chew up everything” phase, but he has had his stick for months and skill hasn’t gotten through the whole thing. He does ingest it, but it’s never caused any issues. Hope this helps!