Bison Femur bone?

So we are completely switched over to Taste of the Wild today but I am still thinking of the Raw diet. For now though we are staying with Taste of the wild and see how it works out. We went to our Local pet food store that does carry a few Raw choices. The one we thought we could afford is Instinct. But we are seeing how things go with taste of the wild first.
Anyway, They also carry some choices for bones too. They are individual bones. She asked us to give the bone a shot just to see what he thinks(a taste of Raw food without the cost). So we are trying a Bison Femur bone. I have NEVER given bones to my dogs before and truthfully this is scary for me. I waited for my husband to be here with us tonight before we tried it.
Toby at first was unsure of it, he sniffed it, ran away from it and BARKED AT IT! Can you believe it, the second bark we have ever heard from him and its to a bone! He then licked it and nibbled on it then he really started to get into it.
I noticed though that the inside of the bone was coming out in crumbs but the outside stayed intact. Is this supposed to happen? If he eats the inside crumbs will it get stuck inside him? We have since taken it back up and put it in the fridge.
Do you feed your dog this type of bone? Is this safe? The store did not carry any brand bones in the freezers just individual bones.
Thank you for the input. I am nervous to give it back to him. BTW.. He is 13 weeks old now.
Becky

I don't feed bones, I don't see any reason to, but that's my opinion. The crumbly stuff should have been marrow, it's edible (people even eat it).

What do you give to your dogs to help with the teeth? I'm glad the inside is ok to eat like that. I know as a puppy they have great teeth but I figure as he gets older he will need extra help especially if he is not chewing on anything.
Becky

Soushiruiuma said:

I don't feed bones, I don't see any reason to, but that's my opinion. The crumbly stuff should have been marrow, it's edible (people even eat it).

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Given the right kind, raw bones are amazing for their teeth! Here's some info I found that may help explain which kind and why (from www.sojos.com)

Q. Why the knuckle bone as opposed to other types of bones?

A. Raw knuckle bones are soft and allow dogs of all sizes to scrape their teeth into the bone, nicely cleaning food and tartar from their teeth. The meat tissue typically still left on the bones allow for a separate type of chewing, which is natural and necessary for your dog. This is the nibbling and pulling you see your dog do with his front teeth. They will use their front teeth to pull the tissue off the bones which is a great way to clean these teeth – natural flossing, if you will.

Being that this is a conversation about teeth cleaning, I am going to focus on the raw knuckle bone in particular as the best type for the topic at hand. This is not to say dogs should never chew on anything else or any other type of bone. Satisfying the need to chew is very important whether or not it contributes to keeping the teeth clean. So let me just say that while other bones may make fine chew toys, I don’t feel they serve the teeth cleaning purpose. One in particular that I don’t recommend for teeth cleaning (besides cooked or sterilized bones) is the femur bone, which ironically is the stereotypical “dog bone” shaped bone. While your dogs will enjoy raw femur bones, I find that they don’t do as good of a job at cleaning the teeth because generally dogs cannot scrape into the femur as easily as they can with the knuckle bone. I also find that the enjoyment doesn’t last as long as it does with a knuckle bone. Many dogs spend most of their time licking out all of the marrow from the femur bones, which may be tasty but has nothing to do with teeth cleaning. Once the marrow is gone, most dogs seem to lose interest. Unlike raw knuckle bones, femur bones are usually very clean, with no meat tissue on them, and they are not very edible because you have to be careful for narrow walled femur bones, which might split upon chewing creating sharp edges. In addition, the marrow in femur bones is very rich and high in fat. Not that this is bad for your dog, but some dogs may react with diarrhea caused by the marrow, though most dogs do just fine with it.

Thank you so much. That was great info! I will search for a knuckle bone to try. We are currently just using it to ease us all into this Raw thing. I wanted to know that he would like Raw and this seemed to be the easiest thing to try without spending the money.
Becky