Chewing and not

Dogs chew right? No; not all dogs chew, there is a huge range of chewers versus non chewers and everything in between. With the whole swing towards feed raw bones I have had a very close look at the chewing in my own dogs as well as others. With the specific research that I have done; I have opted not to feed raw bones. Instead I offer large raw bones for chewing and this is why. I have a Jack Russell Terrier; she is voracious in her eating habits and consequently does no chewing once so ever. If I give her a chicken leg she will commence with swallowing the leg, not one chew.

My cooking for dogs blog; about not chewing today.

But if I give her a cow leg; much too large for her to swallow, she will chew. Both of my poodles will chew; Luke chews quite abnormally for a dog. He likes small pieces of food and will use his front teeth to break food pieces down into minuscule sized pieces and then eat. Dogs in general do not chew their food like we do, they do not need to chew their food as their stomach can digest huge pieces of food. Our digestion compared to a dogs digestion is very different. I'm not going to on about it; just read the article below which is very thorough.

A wonderful article on canine digestion

It is important however for our dogs to gnaw; they must chew something to clean their back teeth. In the wild a wolf gnaws on large skeletal bones; and just watch a dog work a big leg bone, they use their back molars and that's where the worst dental issues arise. Dogs do love to chew; I've read several articles claiming that wolves don't chew but the evidence is there. Bones of large prey animals have the tell tale signs of being chewed and gnawed on. Dogs naturally want to chew; I know I've never taught them to chew sticks or bones, they figure that out all on their own.

Below is a great canine dental anatomy page.

Canine dental anatomy.