help with bones :/

jellyfish

Toki loves RMB and gets them at least once a week, but these last few times in the middle of the night, he vomits part of the bone!

He seems fine otherwise. Poo is fine. Eating fine. Playing fine... Ect.... so im not worried. Just... annoyed.

Why is he barfing up bone? Its always been a quarter sized chunk, which leads me to hypothesize he isnt chewing the last bit. It always seems to be the wishbone part, like, knuckle looking. Always just one chunk.

(Ive been feeding chicken backs, turkey drumsticks lately. When this issue first started, I gave him chicken necks. I figured it was too small cause he vomitted up, but now he is eating huge turky drumsticks and im having the same issue)

How can I prevent toki from vommiting bones?
Why is toki vommiting?

I love my sleep and I my Toklahoma, thus id love it very much if the vommiting in the middle of the night would stop.

ttddinh

Do you think it's because he cannot digest it? everytime I give RMB, the pups cannot go through it all...I usually throw it out. Though, they do not have any problems with chicken and turkey.

jellyfish

I never considered it. Maybe.
But if he couldnr digest bone, then were did the other 5 inches of the bone go? Why only that small bit?

lindsayt

Too much bone, not enough meat. Try adding more meat or finding bone in pieces with smaller amounts of bone.

jellyfish

@lindsayt herrrm... what is more meaty than a turkey leg drumstick? I give him the entire thing out of the package, not just the bone, but the meat included.

what would be an example of "finding bone in pieces with smaller amounts of bone". would this be like a chicken breast?

I'm afraid to try anything not poultry related because it'll be too rich for Toki. (i know from bad experiences, ha)

ttddinh

lol...oh yea, didn't you mention that Toki had exploding diarrhea from rich meats???

Do you give organs with these meals?

shibamistress

My dogs occasionally vomit up pieces of bigger bones, like parts of chicken drumsticks. Usually they do it a couple of times, then seem to get used to them, and don't have any problems with them after that. So I watch, and as long as it doesn't happen more than a few times, I figure it is ok.

The Shibas, oddly, never have problems with any bones at all, but both the Akita and the Kai Ken have had some vomiting up of bone pieces when we first shifted to leg/thighs. For the Kai, now, we don't give him the ends (joint part) which he seemed to be having trouble with.

I think any of mine would have trouble with the ends on turkey drumsticks though. They are pretty big. If he's vomiting the big, end pieces, maybe just cut those off? If not, maybe turkey drumsticks are just too big? Go to chicken? But also you could just wait and see if it stops....really, with my guys, they did it 2-3 times, then just stopped, so I think they got used to it....

Also, my dogs almost always vomit bone from pork, so I only give them pork occassionally. Don't know why it bothers them, but I wonder if the bone is just different? Doesn't sound like you want to try pork with him anyway, but....

jellyfish

@shibamistress Yes! The end joint piece, that is the part he is having trouble with! Maybe I'll try cutting off the end next time. I think I might have one more drumstick left in the freezer.

In the future, if this happens again, should I just let him clean up his own vomit? I've been picking it up after him. (of course, he always vomits on carpet)

@ttddinh ha! oh geez. yes. Explosion. Though, its one of my favorite horror stories solely because he held it in until we ran down a flight of stairs and halfway across the apartment complex to get to "his" poop spot. Bless his heart. Oh Toki.

shibamistress

Ok, gross as this is, I've got to admit that our strategy with vomit is always this: I check to see if anything looks like they shouldn't reconsume it, then I turn away, give them 5 minutes, and if it's not gone, I clean it up. But it almost always is.

If he's vomiting the end pieces, I'd probably take them away because he may just revomit them if he consumes them again. They're pretty big.

jellyfish

ah okay. memo noted. maybe ill just take away the bone part and leave the rest. Its usually just yellow bile with a few bits of tiny digested chicken. pretty yucky.

lindsayt

I've gotten bad about barf cleanup, too. The dogs are so silly. As soon as they hear an Urka Gurka, they all swarm who ever it is and wait to inspect the goods. If it's food, I let them clean it, but if it's bone or grass, I toss it.

I fed some duck necks yesterday, and sure enough Beebe regurgitated a bone hunk. Necks have very little meat, so I expected something from her (lite stomach), and got it. When the item is "cushioned" with more meat, they can digest more of it easily compared to a very bone dense item, so regurgitating inedibles doesn't happen. JMO.

shibamistress

That makes sense, Lindsay, that the cushioning helps it go down, which also explains partially why those end bones are difficult. That said, my dogs didn't barf up necks/backs when we fed them that, which do have little meat. I wonder if it also has to do with the density of the bone (and of course the individual dog).

yeah, dogs. Gross. But they do run to investigate everytime! And in our house, there is sometimes barf-guarding. Ick.

Losech

Guess I'm lucky, all my dogs are repulsed by dog barf. That is one of the few things Sasha will not eat.