My 15 week old gsd won't chew her necks. she tends to swallow them whole. How long will she do this? I did, at one point, hack them up with a butcher knife, but I would have thought by this age she would be able to chew them up. ??

Yes she should. They usually start at a very young age too. They enjoy it.

Perhaps you shoudl start feeding her bigger bones she cant swallow and has to chew to break up!

I wouldn't worry about her swallowing the necks whole. However, she may regurgitate them. Don't chop them up, you made it easy for her, hence the swallowing whole.

Try feeding her chicken backs which she will have to chew. I wouldn't feed any larger bones than that (ie: legs, thighs) until the adult teeth come in.

I have been considering the raw diet for awhile and now finally we have gotten some frozen raw meat at our local pet store which I'm interested in trying out. I know a breeder in Germany that uses it with good results.

Anyway, about bones...my dog has gotten a few smoked ham bones before which she really loved and ate them all. But the place we got them from no longer sells them, and last week we went by the pet store and decided to try 1 new kind of bone. It is also a ham bone, but not quite the same. A leg bone. Anyway, she also ate that one completely but starting the next day she starting to throw it all up. It took about 3-4 times until she got it all up and it was all the pieces of bones (at least she chewed to get it into small pieces). Well since that we thought it would probably not be a good idea to give her more bones since that made us worry about one of those pieces getting stuck somewhere or cutting her. (She also had problems going to the bathroom, but now she's back to normal).

But as was just written, they might regurgitate....so my question is...is this normal?

I wouldn't use smoked ham bones! they are cooked and can cause big problems for dogs that break them up and swallow chunks. Those smoked bones they sell for dogs are something I would not take a chance with!

Raw bones are ok, cooked bones are the danger.

I would use chicken necks to introduce any dog new to raw to bones.

I would recommend doing some reading on the raw diet BEFORE jumping into it.... http://leerburg.com/books.htm

Leerburg sells several excellent books on Nutrition and raw feeding.

So, how do you get her to chew? When does she stop regurgitating them? Is it an age thing? Is it because she eats too fast? Should I feed her 3X per day instead of 2?

sounds really disgusting but try hand feeding her only let her have a little bit of it at once and make her take the little bit off.

that what i am going to start doing with my pup till i get him off kibble completely

I know this seems off the subject, but our coonhounds used to swallow cats whole. They didn't want us to take them away. No ill side affects. I would say your dog has really good food drive.

She has GREAT food drive. And toy drive. She's been crunching them a little better, plus I've been feeding her less at a time. We then go outside for a couple of minutes, then back in to finish. I make sure the toys are put away and the cat is downstairs so she doesn't bounce around so much. Jeff, you said your coonhounds used to swallow cats whole. Does that mean they chew them up now? Gross.

They are all long gone, they were my fathers. It was very weird thing to see. They only did it when you were trying to stop them, which meant it was probably your favorite cat. Good times.