RE: What is the expert opinion of bones, raw marrow bones and chews for cats?

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 22:33:10 GMT

With regard to dogs: it's not only the hardness of the chew-object, it's the diameter and shape. I continue to suggest rawhide chews of suitable size, and I have no objection to big raw bones. You want to see the dog gnawing the outside – the teeth slide and scrape across the surface.

I always advised against small cooked bony stuff – not because of any harm to the teeth but because I have spent far too many hours, generally in the evening, alternating my finger with the enema tube up dogs' bums. I was d*** good at it, but I would have preferred to avoid the exercise.

With regard to cats: cats are not small dogs, and that applies to their dentition too. They use their teeth in a different way. The stuff that pet cats are normally fed on, be it "meat" or "kibble", gives no use to the teeth at all – in fact toothless cats eat it perfectly well. Since most have been raised since weaning on nothing else, many cats just have no interest in "chews" at all. If your cat will take something that is slightly flexible and the diameter of a pencil, I'd be very pleased.

I suggest to clients that they offer the cat a gristly offcut of meat once or twice a week – you don't want the cat to consume it, you want to see him drag it around the kitchen floor and gnaw on it. This does not interest all cats, however.

(I used to suggest that the ideal thing would be to chuck a dead zebra on the kitchen floor once a month. I had to stop that when one or two clients took me literally).

RE: What is the expert opinion of bones, raw marrow bones and chews for cats?

Norman Johnston — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 17:07:05 GMT

As far as dogs and bones are concerned the advice from the past was lightly boiled chicken necks or oxtails. Then BSE hit and the butcher didn't give away or sell these items. When people want to give their dog a bone it seems to be down to longevity of the product versus effectiveness. Effective against what? As far as cleaning they fall well short of raw vegetables and the like. Effective against boredom?
I've maybe said this before here but I liken the use of inappropriately hard chew toys to Russian roulette. One of these days there will be a bullet in the chamber.
Mars have a free webinar on 10th November where the lead author of the only definitive paper on the subject of forces that cause tooth fracture will speak. thewebinarvet.com/webinar/tooth-fractures-what-you-need-to-know

A Q&A follows so she can be quizzed. Could be interesting because they know a lot more than was put in the paper.

Domestic cat teeth are no more brittle - just smaller and more shell-like. I never saw cat fractured carnassials much - cats are much more careful about what they put in their mouth and what they do with it. Given the purpose of carnassial teeth is to strip the meat from their prey into bite size chunks to swallow, domestic cats seem to limit these teeth to exactly that. If not that, their prey is more likely to be birds and mice so access to huge long bones less likely. Big cats, certainly those in zoos, are more likely to replicate the type of buccal slab fracture we see commonly in dogs. Better access to old and dried long bones and the boredom to chomp on them.