While I was at Whole Foods today, I noticed that they have marrow bones (beef shanks, it looks like, with all the meat scraped off). On a whim, I got one for Trink. She has just finished devouring it (well.. OK... she's scraped off all the tissue left on the outside and ate out all the marrow, the bone itself doesn't seem to be appealing to her). It was rather amusing to watch. She's got a long, narrow tongue to go with her long narrow head, and it was cute to see the nose on one side of the bone, and the tip of the tongue just peeking out of the bone on the other side!

So... how often can I give her these things? Marrow is almost pure fat, so I don't want to do too many. Once a week, or is that too often?

This stuff is in regular dogfood, ground up and known as meat and bone meal. As long as they are long bones and not backbones I would say give her all she wants or what you can afford. The ground up stuff is better at supplying minerals like calcium and phosphorus. You would want to avoid those hollow poultry bones that could splinter into sharp pieces, and also discard when she's not looking any gnawed on small pieces she could swallow whole and choke on. The milkbone bicuits have bone meal, you can give 5 or 6 a day with no problem

Watch her stool, if it changes (by way of getting soft... ), then she is eating too much of the stuff.

I give this bone to a couple of my dogs for 10 minutes every 4-5 days, I like to keep my dogs FIT and the stool healthy. For my dogs this is a good amount of time alloted and often enough.

If you're dog has had an active day, I don't see how this can get him/her fat. Please don't let your beautiful dog get over weight. It's so unhealthy for dogs...

Just remember that it's been HIGHLY PROCESSED... so it's not particularly healthy for him/her. It's worse than the WORST junk food for us humans!

Perhaps you can do what I prefer to do for my dogs... I boil some marrow bones in hickory smoked water. The hickory smoke is a liquid and you can purchase it in most grocery stores.

Get your dog used to chewing on the bone... they have no taste buds anyhow, it's all in their noses! As long as it smells good they will enjoy it.

It's cheaper and healthy to make it yourself. If he/she doesn't like it... then don't give him anything at all. He'll/she'll quickly realize that it's YOUR CHOICE AND YOUR WAY or he/she get nothing at all. Dogs only get spoiled if we spoil them. It's unnatural to have a spoiled dog in the wild... (just think about that, if you would... ).

Remember, it must be a marrow bone... no other. The other bones are too soft... and he'll/she'll choke or get diarreah...

I used to give it to my dogs they loved it. Unfortunately it crakred a good number of her teeth. Use with caution.

Well... the advantage is that she doesn't actually chew on the bone. She's definitely a licker. So scraping the outside with her teeth, and licking the marrow out, is about the extent of it.

That's what my dog did. They tend to be heavey, I think that was a part of the problem. Have you ever tried pigs ears or snouts. They love then. Don't give them on carpet. They leave stains

I would say not more than 10% of her diet(or less depending on the fat content of her other food) should be these "treats"... I would watch her skin, her stools, and her wieght, if you notice changes cut back. Once a week might be a bit much, maybe closer to once every 10 days. We used to give our dogs "knuckle bones" and the bones you're describing but they were a rare - monthly and only in the fair months of the year, treat.

You know, it occurs to me that I can take the bone, fill the hollow with something, which will give me an indication of how much fat there is by volume. Then I can do some fast math to get an estimate on the calorie content. I am thinking that maybe once a week may be high... we'll see. The problem is that she doesn't actually eat all that much, because she doesn't do a lot of exercise, but when she does exercise, it's really intense. Nothing matches watching a greyhound run! But that's 5 minutes, every 2-3 days, so...

They love peanut butter!

Also, you're not SERIOUS about all that calorie counting are you, Froggy? LMAO!!

Well, if you REALLY REALLY want to spoil your dog think about boiling some liver, (as EWWW as THAT sounds!) and mash it up. Stuff a tablespoon of that gross gunk! YOUR DOG WILL ADORE THE PANTS OFFA YOU! Lol... Keep in mind that you should begin w/ less, if your dog has a sensitive tummy, so maybe you can scrape the inside marrow w/ the stuff. Build your dog up to a tablespoon, or more. (Depends on your dogs stool... it's very telling. Lol!)

It's yummy protein and they love love love it!

But peanut butter if fine too...