Bones

We feed the dogs raw. This means raw meat and bones, with a few veggies thrown in. I've talked about this before but I'm too lazy to find and link to it.

Anyway, when we first got Balou he was used to kibble. He was perfectly happy to switch from kibble to meat. He took to the ground meat and veggies quite easily. He gave me a look the first time I gave him a frozen chicken foot, but they quickly became his most favorite treat ever. Balou seems to prefer chicken and turkey to lamb and beef. And it seems that his giant head is sensitive to cold. So for a while he would growl over his chicken backs and take forever to eat them. But either I've been defrosting them for longer now or he has gotten less picky and sensitive about his food.

It used to be that when I gave him a lamb neck bone and he'd look at me with a look that clearly said "Why you give me weird food??" But he'd slowly and surely eat it. And if I gave him and Trillian beef rib bones... oh, that just didn't work. Balou knew it was tasty goodness, but he just had no idea how to eat it. He tried chewing through the whole thing: fail. He tried biting off part of it: fail. He tried gnawing the meat off: fail as he didn't brace it and the bone slid away. He just couldn't seem to separate the bone from the tasty meat. So he'd guard it, and get growly. And of course by this time Trillian would have finished hers, including cracking part of the bone for the marrow. So she'd be nosing around him and he'd really guard it then.

But about a week ago I decided to try again. I made sure the beef ribs were nice aand defrosted. I planned that we'd work up to them. So dinner for dogs wa some chicken backs for each of them and when those were all gone they each got a beef rib. Both Balou and Trillian ate their chicken backs with no delay. Balou didn't stop to guard his from the dog in the fireplace (his reflection). He just chomped the chicken right down. Balou seemed happy to get the beef rib, he did a tiny bit of guarding but mostly he just went to town on eating it. Trillian was still finished much faster, but Balou ate all the meat off his bone.

So the past couple of nights I've given them both bones as the last item of food they get. They are both happy over this. Though once they are done with the meat there are small arguments about who gets to gnaw on the bone itself. They will each try to steal from the other. But the bones do keep them occupied and happy for quite a while.