Beef Marrow bones are bad

Poor Lola– she fractured her upper molar very badly last week on a marrow bone that I had given the dogs for a treat, and we ended up taking her to the Animal Dental Clinic in San Carlos for a (very expensive) tooth extraction. The tooth was too damaged to save via root canal. They did a good job with the extraction, though.

Some people might be a bit squeamish about seeing a picture of the broken tooth, but here’s a link to it for those interested in seeing more.

Lesson learned: beef marrow/knuckle bones are harder than teeth for good reason. They are weight-bearing bones that support a very large animal. If you want to give marrow bones for recreation, then monitor it carefully and take away the bone after the dog has finished licking the marrow out of the ends. After that, many dogs will start chewing the bone in an attempt to get more marrow out of the middle and that is bad news for teeth.