How can you tell if a dog has "hard" "big" or "spongy" bone? Alot of breeders will talk about the dogs bone but Im interested in knowing how you can tell from looking?

is this an intrinsic trait? or in an osteoporosis sort of way (can dogs even get that?)

what do you mean? (just a little lost on the meanings myself):P

not sure i was super clear....

i was wondering if you're saying that some breeds of dogs have hard, soft, or spongy bone, and that's what you were asking about, or if you meant the dogs had 25% bone loss (osteoporosis....osteopenia is 20% bone loss for the nerds out there).

i wasn't sure if you meant in was something in the breed of the dog, or if you meant a medical issue.

Oh! no I meant I have read descriptions of dogs that say something like "___ has super big bone" or some reference to the bone being "spongy" wich sounds like they are making reference to it not being solid... know anything about this?

i'm no help there, i'm afraid. i know some species (i.e. rabbits) have hollow bones, but i've no idea how dogs bones vary. interesting though!

edit: just thinking - some people are 'big boned' they actually have bigger/wider bones. my mom has pretty small bones and her wrists are tiny. you can actually tell the knobby thing on the outside of the wrist is bigger in my wrist than hers. so maybe the breeders are looking at joints/feeling along the legs to see actually bone width/circumfrence?

 Quote: mary roach

I meant I have read descriptions of dogs that say something like "___ has super big bone" or some reference to the bone being "spongy" wich sounds like they are making reference to it not being solid... know anything about this?

I'm not a breeder, nor do I possess spectacular knowledge about anatomy and conformation, but from the little I do know, "big bone" is usually used in a pretty subjective and informal way to describe an individual within a breed that, while still fitting into standard, simply has a visually thicker and more robust skeletal structure.

My dog could be described as a "big boned" Rhodesian because in comparison to a lot of other RRs, he looks thicker in silhouette, particularly the head and legs (which have less muscle covering the anatomy than say, the haunch, so you can see the bone structure better). Of course, all this is relative, and a blunt example would be to say that a grey hound is fine boned, while a mastiff is big boned... but that's the way I understand it, and there can actually be quite a bit of variation within breed standards in this regard.

I have NO idea what is meant by "spongy" bone, though it doesn't sound like a trait I'd want (makes me think of bone disease and fragility...). Curious to hear what the experts out there know about this subject!!

~Natalya