Shop dog LOVES oak!

[Searcher]

My yellow just loves to chew on oak, only oak and nothing else! I have aquired an old desk, well half the desk anyway, I figures I could take it apart and salvage whats left for use in other projects. While I was cutting away the good stuff I notice her starting to chew on one of the "bad" pieces that I tossed on the floor. I took it away from her and threw the bone to her. I picked up the scraps and tossed them into the burn bucket. She seemed to be satisfied for awhile but I left to go into the house for a drink, when I came back out she had the tail tween the legs and looking for some love. I knew something was wrong so I looked and sure enough she had two pieces of scrap on her bed. I thought about it for a moment then figured OK this is the old stuff and she never chews anything good at least not in the 8 months shes been alive. So, I am wondering is this a start of a bad habit or does she just like the taste of the old oak? I tried to give her a piece of pine that I had laying around, boy she turned her nose to that like it were canned food! So, in the immortal words of good OLE BARNEY, do I "nip it in the bud"? Or do I let it go andmake sure I stack the "good stuff" up on high?

Searcher

[tom]

Canned food? Interesting. But that part about "going into the house for a drink" seems to be the key. Ya gotta watch 'em like a hawk while you're drinkin'(or not). She's a dog, I gather, so let it go, and stack the good stuff up on high. Tom, with a gin and tonic. Hic.

[Leuf]

I guess that would depend on whether your thresholds/mouldings/kitchen table legs/etc are made of oak :) I'd just be afraid of splinters in her mouth.

-Leuf

[Chip Chester]

Oak = real tough leather chews -- due to tannin?

[nailshooter41]

Leuf wrote:

[Upscale]

Better wood than my cat who loves to chew on wires. Haven't been able to wean her off of them, (at least not so far) so I've gotten into the habit of occasionally tossing one of her favourite wires to play with ~ a coiled telephone handset wire. On the mornings when she doesn't wake me up with her mewing at my bedroom door, I often come out of my room sniffing the air for cooked cat hair.

[Frank Drackman]

Nip it, Nip it, Nip it!

[Frank Drackman]

I worked with a guy who lost two cats to electricity. He thought that his neighbor poisoned them and had autopsies done only to find out that they had chewed through a cord. The cost of the autopsy was unbelievable.

[Mitch]

A few thoughts. I have been lurking in here for a while, as I am just getting into woodworking, but I have some good experience on this topic.

I would guess that your yellow is like mine and is a mouth dog - no taste = no interest. And what the dog is after is not only the texture of the oak, but all of the tannins, since you said she isn't interested in non-tannic woods like Pine. The tannins are giving alot of flavor the dog probably likes.

I would say there is no harm in it, EXCEPT, at this age you will need to be very strict on how the pup gets the wood. If she picks up the wood herself, she thinks anything is fair game, scrap or nearly finished coffee table. You need to put the scraps for her in a certain bin, and personally take them out and give them to her.

My wife, who is a vet, would say hell no!! Shard in a small dog, doesn't show very well in X-ray, exploratory surgery to extract it, at least $1000. So if you are going to allow little yellow to chew, I would be darned sure to pay attention to her, and at the first sign of any real splintering, take that peice away from her.

Just my .02 .... I guess more like .55

Mitch

[fredfighter]

Rabitts (who are more closely related to cats than to rodents, BTW) are notoriously fond of chewing on electrical cords. If you ask at a pet store they may have something you can put on the cord to discourage that.

My cat was fond of swallowing string. She came up to me once with about 4 inches of string hanging out of her mouth. I pulled and pulled and about two feet came out. She was a bit upset about the last 6 inches.

Then there was the time she passed a shoelace. Those weren't link sausages.

[Searcher]

I thought about the splinters too, I don't like the idea of her getting into trouble, since we have become quite fond of her. Shes a great shop dog always causing me to stop what I am doing to play with her, I never really get anything accomplished. I think I will just cover the burn barrel and give her more tasty things to chew on. She does love real bones, I discovered that to her the fun is not getting all the marrow out but in how long it takes to get it out. I bought her a good sized bone and she was busy working it over. I had a 22oz hammer in my hand and had this idea, well she sucked down the marrrow and walked away looking somewhat disapointed.. So, I will let her have at it on her own for the next one.

Thanks for the thoughts

Searcher

[Leon]

Geez, sounds like a push stick waiting to happen. ;~)

[Leon]

I hoping you knew that before performing the "Taste" for verification. '~)

[Leon]

Well beware of bones also.. They too will splinter and can cause severe damage. I remember taking our Weimer to the vet in the middle of the night to have her mouth stitched back up. The vet said were lucky that the she had not swallowed the bone. After getting the emergency treatment bill I did not feel so lucky. Chew toys are better.

[Smaug Ichorfang]

When I was a teenager, I used to go to a lot of church retreats, youth conferences, and whatnot. To pass the time, I used to whittle; chains, ball-in-cages, etc. out of 1" and 3/4" square cedar and mahogany stock. One evening I was talking to a counseler who stoped by while I was whittling. He picked up a piece of cedar and asked about what king of wood it was. Next time I looked up, he had chewed up about 5" beyond use. His reply was one of those "Oh, were you using that?" replies.

My Old Fat White Cat (his name) liked to eat rubber bands. They came out O-O-O-O-O-O (use uout imagination).

[Enoch Root]

Did she run rampant through the house trying to escape her "pursuers"?

I hate that.

er

[Joe Gorman]

Paint the wires cables and cords the cat has access to, pretty much any wire in the house, with a mixture of hot sauce and cayenne pepper, or anything hotter if you have it. Let this dry on the wires, cables and cords and most cats and dogs will stop chewing after a small taste. Joe

[fredfighter]

Beware of nylabone (Tm) chew toys, e.g. the plastic ones. They are indigestible and the dog may swallow big chunks with rough edges that are too big to pass through the intestine and wear holes in the stomache. Even bone will be slowly softened and broken down by the stomache acid but nylabone chunks are there unless the dog can ralph them back up (in which case he'll probably swallow them again, or they are surgically removed.

My understanding has always been that hard bones like beef bones are OK, the dog wears those down but soft bones like pork bones and especially poultry will splinter and cause serious problems like you encounter, worse if they are sswallowed.

OTOH, I knew a famer who always gave his chicken bones to his dogs, their life expectancy seemed to be the same as pretty much anybody else's. I still think the risk is real but I don't rush my dog to the vet if she finds a chicken bone some jerk threw down by the sidewalk. I DO take it away from her if I can get to it quick enough.

[Squanklin]

Be careful about allowing your dog to chew on wood, bones, or anything that can get stuck in them.

One day, I came home from work at lunchtime to check on my two dogs. One of them was making funny faces at me that I had never seen before. After much patting and checking, I finally discovered why:

She had been chewing on a stick and bit down hard on it. The left half fell off to the left... the right half fell off to the right... and the middle half was stuck between her upper teeth!

Luckily, nothing was caught in her throat.

[Enoch Root]

Were that farmer's chicken bones cooked, or raw? I have heard that it is the cooked bones that present a danger, but that raw bones are digested easily. I don't know if it's true, but it makes sense.

er