Our new rescue dog, Red, has regained full health, has been neutered and de-wormed, and is a happy 55# semi-puppie. Our problem with him is he NEEDS to chew, and normal chew things disappear in minutes. We need a super tough chew toy for him. Bought him a Kong furry thing, but he won't touch it. Rawhide does not last but a few minutes. He had a cow hoof, but it is pretty small now. I'm tempted to give him an old piston, but Jane won't allow that. Any suggestions?
Have you tried one of these? Nylabone that is nearly hard as rock. Might last him a week?
I haven't heard of a Kong Furry, but a regular Kong is hard to beat for interest and durability. We plug one end with peanut butter, set them upright in small glasses, and fill with chicken broth and freeze for a long lasting treat they can't resist. These work great if you are working on separation anxiety issues too.
Sometimes we just throw some kibble in the Kongs with some peanut butter or moist food for interest. Our dogs also will just chase the Kongs and play with them without food inside.
I donate a couch (found curbside) to my dog every few weeks. The only bone-type-thing that has lasted are long and flat rib bones from Petco.
Get him a hollow beef leg bone from the butcher and stuff it with peanut butter. You won't see him for hours and when you do his tongue will have cramps.
Get him another rescue dog to play with.
Worked for me.
Another vote for the Kong wobbler thingy. If the dog is hard on everything it plays with, a Kong frisbee can help with the exercise. Just don't let the dog chew on it like a chew toy, it's meant to be a frisbee still.
Oh, he already has a crazed boxer to play with, but she plays very rough, biting and trying to dominate. I see really bad things happening if they are allowed unsupervised play time. The Mommies will not permit any playtime for the both of them, and I agree.
I had the same issue with my lab. If it was soft, he destroyed it in minutes, if it was hard he wasn't interested. Regular Kong products are about the best I've found for something that he can get his teeth into but not destroy in the time it takes me to throw the packaging away and they're readily available at most pet stores.
If the red Kongs aren't durable enough, the black ones are designed for stronger chewers.
We put bits of cheese slices into the ribs of the red kong toys for our 2 labs - their daily treat each morning as we prepare for work.
Our experience with a hollow beef bone - the dog cleaned it so well it got stuck on her lower jaw, hooked behind her canine teeth. Needed a trip to the vet on a Saturday night at 10 pm to get it cut off... (the kid in the waiting room thought it was neat -"Look Mommy - the dog brought it's bone with her"... )
We buy the heavy duty rawhides from the bulk store, but even those might only last a couple of days...
I haven't seen a black kong, I'll have to look for one for my half-alligator hound.
One of my dogs was a big chewer till I got him the berkeleyall big rawhide bone (the 2-3 foot long one). I think his inability to easily destroy it broke his spirit. Before that it was problematic because he only chewed things he could destroy, ignoring Kongs and Nylabones.
I give my dog calf leg bones. I get them at petco and they cost about 20 bucks. She really grinds them down, but they take her a few months. My wife calls it the puppie pacifier.
Puppy Pacifier. I really like the sound of that!
I just want to express my gratitude that neither of my pits are chewers. The last few dogs my family had chewed us out of house and home - baseboards, trim, furniture legs...not pretty.
But, when we give them a tough treat to gnaw on, they take it down like nobody's business. Good thing it's a hobby for them, not an obsession.
Local pet supply store has deer and I think moose antlers. They are like bones, but without the mess.
Just throwing it out there, though I assume most dog owners know this: make sure you only give your dogs RAW bones.
Cooked bones can splinter and do horrible, nasty, expensive things to your dogs GI tract.
Most butchers will sell you "dog bones" for something like $.99/lb.
Just leave the engine covers off your generator. He'll eat every belt and hose off of it. Ask me how I know. 
That or get him a cow. It'll take him a while to chase it down. 
Seriously, my last chewer would eat anything. Lawn furniture, fence posts, tires. Bones wouldn't last a hour. The only thing that would last was a 2X4 or a piece of oak firewood. I figured they had to be better for her than the treated fence. She eventually outgrew it, but not soon enough for me.
Toyman01 wrote: She eventually outgrew it, but not soon enough for me.
Yup. Gertrude destroyed the paneling in one room of the house as a puppy. She's mostly outgrown that urge.
We did the peanut-butter in a bone thing (or even just the marrow was addicting for them), until one broke a canine tooth in half on it. $1200 root canal later and we don't give them bones anymore.
Regular kong is pretty tough.
You'll need to log in to post.
