next »

[frankenstein]

Wise dog people...please help me figure out my dog's behaviour, which has me very curious.  Why won't he chew his rawhide bone?  He carries it around the house so that it is always in the room with him.  When we are eating dinner, he will carry it into the dining room and ostentatiously drop it on the floor, almost as if he wants to 'trade'.  When we go upstairs to bed at night, he will come with us and lie down on his blanket.  As soon as we turn out the lights, he goes downstairs to fetch the bone.  We were concerned that there was something wrong with his teeth until he demolished a bone that my MIL gave him.  I have tried explaining that if he chews it up we will get him another, but I guess his English vocabulary isn't as good as I thought.  Any ideas on what he's trying to say?  What unexplainable things are your dogs doing?

[swtrixie]

Some dogs just don't like rawhides.

Try a bully stick or a pigs ear. You might even try a carrot.

Dog's teeth can get pretty nasty. Your dog might have sore teeth that may prevent him from enjoying your generous gift. Take Fido to a Vet for a checkup and don't forget the dental exam.

[mountainguy]

Was the bone that your MIL gave him a different type? It's possible that he simply doesn't prefer to chew the one you've given him. As long as he's eating normally and not engaging in any food guarding/hoarding behaviors, I wouldn't worry about it.

It's important dogs have particular preferences and personalities, just like people. I volunteered at the animal shelter this afternoon, and the way different dogs interact with the same toys is completely different. I walked a coon hound that completely loved to carry a frisbee around in her mouth, but the rat terrier that I took out next completely ignored it and wanted to play with a squeaky ball instead.

[mountainguy]

Oh, and I agree with Swtrixie that it's still probably a good idea to keep an eye on his teeth the next time he's in for a vet checkup.

[j_source]

Our dog happily devours  almost all rawhide chews.  But when we give her a circular one - think a rawhide stick formed into a donut, she always takes it outside and buries it.  She doesn't do this with any others.  I have absolutely no idea why.  To me it looks exactly like the same substance as all the others that she eats.  Who knows?

[kedves]

Good points above; also, a rawhide or toy isn't exciting if it's available all the time.

[stitch]

Yup.  I have a dog that just doesn't like to chew much.   She pretty much ignores the raw hides, except once or twice a year when she tears into one with gusto.

AS for my other dog... I give her 4 or 5 at once, and she spends the rest of the evening carefully "hiding" them.  Usually in plain sight in corners.  Sometimes on the cats scratching post.  

Or she'll nose my hand/foot/shirt/blanket out of the way, put it down, and then nose my hand/foot/shirt/blanket back over to hide it.   Very cute.  

Every night she rearranges them, and every few days she'll actually chew one of them.  When she runs out, we start over with a new handful.

What's really funny is if one of the cats walks up to sniff one of her  "hidden" chews, she'll bark and go running over to grab it and find a new hiding place.  Like a cat could actually chew a rawhide.

Actually, I have one that tries, but he doesn't get very far.

[stitch]

Oh yeah, the teeth.  I have to brush the non chewer's teeth. 

Mmmm.  Peanut butter toothpaste.

[infopri]

Yes, the very first thing is to make sure his teeth are okay--even if he demolished your MIL's bone.  Dogs are notorious for ignoring discomfort for something particularly yummy.  Assuming his teeth are fine, then it's preference.  Note that he doesn't ignore your rawhide; he simply seems to prefer to carry it around than to chew it. 

BTW, for years I ignored my vets' exhortations not to give bones--even very hard ones--to my dogs.  I figured that they were built to hunt and therefore to deal with bones.  But one day she vomited (from medication) at her surgeon's office (she was about to have a torn ACL repaired surgically), and there was a small piece of bone in the resulting mess.  The surgeon tore me a new one for giving a dog any bones.  She started giving me statistics on the number of dogs she's had to do emergency surgery on and the age dogs die in the wild, all from internal tears caused by ingested bone fragments.  I went home that day and threw out every bone in the house (there were many).

Rawhide isn't much better.  It can cause a choking hazard for many dogs.  Also, it's doggy junk food.  Pig ears are safer, but high in calories.  I still give the dogs the pig ears, but only on special occasions and under supervision.  The dogs' primary treat now is low-calorie biscuits (and the dabs of peanut butter I use for their twice-daily non-tasty medications), and they seem perfectly happy with those.

[mountainguy]

Stitch, that's hilarious that one of the cats has tried to eat the rawhide. My cat growing up would not have put up with that sort of behavior from our golden retriever.

We eventually had to take away bones from our retriever not because she was eating them, but because she had an irresistible compulsion to bury them in the back yard. She was never a digger otherwise, but something about the bones just made that instinct kick in.

[undisciplined]

Maybe he wants you to throw the bone.

[frankenstein]

Thanks, everyone.  The point about the teeth is well-taken, as is the point about dogs ignoring discomfort for the sake of yumminess.  Actually, his teeth are kind of plaque-y, which is why the vet recommended giving him a rawhide bone in the first place.  The vet didn't seem to think there was anything more serious wrong with his teeth and I have been brushing them.  He has had a couple of cancerous growths removed from his mouth so I wonder if those surgeries, although well in the past, affected his ability to chew.  I am mostly asking about this out of amused curiosity.  I get the distinct impression that when he is carrying the bone around he is trying to tell me something and he's quite annoyed that I am not getting it!

He is something of a quirky dog anyway.  He eats by taking a mouthful of dog food, spewing the kibbles around the kitchen, and..then there is some kind of elaborate sorting process for that first mouthful.  He will nuzzle and lick each kibble separately, then eat them in a specific order.  Some get passed over the first time, but eaten at the end.  After the first mouthful he just inhales the rest like, well, like he's back to being a dog again.  I would really love to ask him what he is doing.

[big_giant_head]

Your dog is treating the rawhide like a very special prize that belongs only to him. 

My dog sometimes does that, and she also taunts the cats with her rawhides, stuffed dollies, and balls.  She'll carry them to places she knows the cats will walk, so she can claim that they were trying to steal her stuff.  She'll leave them at the end of the bed and then jump over to 'protect' them if the cats decide to join us there. 

I know that if we had another dog, with whom she could wrestle, and who really DID want her dumb old rawhides, she would probably stop annoying the cats.

But it's funny, you know, so we sort of egg her on. 

[infopri]

Frankenstein, that last bit (about how your dog eats) reminds me of one of mine.  Before I adopted Big Dog and Little Dog, White Dog used to do something similar.  Back then, he ate only dry food, and he'd grab a mouthful and dump it on the floor, then smell and eat the kibble pieces one by one.  (There didn't seem to be any order, though.  Then he'd do the same with the next mouthful.  He had to stop when Little Dog came along, though, because she's small and fast and would steal all the food.  White Dog learned to keep it in the bowl and use his larger head and body to keep Little Dog out of it.

Now White Dog is old, Little Dog has gotten much more aggressive (I have to stand guard or separate them at meal time), and White Dog often needs to be spoonfed, or he else he loses interest in his food altogether, even though it now includes canned food and a handful of yummy kitty kibble.  It's maddening.

(BTW, I just realized that my earlier post wasn't clear.  It was Big Dog that vomited the bone fragment in the surgeon's office.)

[frankenstein]

Your dog is treating the rawhide like a very special prize that belongs only to him. 

My dog sometimes does that, and she also taunts the cats with her rawhides, stuffed dollies, and balls.  She'll carry them to places she knows the cats will walk, so she can claim that they were trying to steal her stuff.  She'll leave them at the end of the bed and then jump over to 'protect' them if the cats decide to join us there. 

I know that if we had another dog, with whom she could wrestle, and who really DID want her dumb old rawhides, she would probably stop annoying the cats.

But it's funny, you know, so we sort of egg her on. 

It is EXACTLY like this sometimes.  When we open the door to let him outside, he will suddenly start wagging his tail and pounce on the bone.  He carries it outside and prances around in the yard like "Nyeh-nyeh all you other dogs!  Lookee what I got and you don't!  Suckers!"  We don't have any other pets, so he just has to imagine that some other creature, somewhere is jealous.

I am really getting a kick out of these quirky dog stories.  Thanks for sharing, everyone.