Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi All!
It's been a while since I have posted, but I have made a new addition to the family. A few weeks ago I adopted an APBT (2 yrs old), another rescue. She is a great dog, but has a little food aggression. I am careful to watch her (Emily) when she plays with my JRT/Pug (Duncan).

My question (thus far) is that she has a tendency to chew on her raw hide bones until she starts to bleed. At that point she will just keep on chewing regardless of the bleeding mouth. Should I be concerned? I have never known a dog to do this repeatedly.

Please help!

maybe you've gotten an answer from another forum by now?

I don't give mine the raw-hide, so no clue about that, but

I'd just suggest a thorough check of her entire mouth to see if there is a problem. The problem with raw-hide & there might be some 'brands'/'types' that aren't too bad? is that they get very gummy & large pieces can get stuck on the roof of their mouth.

another thought, is that maybe like with a human flossing, some bleeding might be a sign that its working???

I would suggest that your vet is the only one that can say for certain.

wonderful of you to adopt, best to you both

My dog used to do that. I think with him, the biggest problem was that once he got a rawhide bone, he had to keep chewing until it was gone. It didn't matter if his mouth was bleeding, or he had to go outside, or if it took 8 hours. He would not set it down until it was gone. Then I learned that he was allergic to them and they were giving him a rash, and after that I learned that they're really not very good for the dog anyway.

What worked for us was giving him a nylabone. They're much more expensive but one medium sized one will last for a month or so whereas the rawhide was always gone in a few hours. Aside from his rash clearing up he doesn't treat the nylabone like a food item to be devoured. Instead, it's a chew toy.

Maybe if you give her nylabones instead of rawhide she won't feel the need to chew on it for excessive lengths of time.. Or you could try taking away the rawhide when you think she should stop, but you mention she's a little food aggressive and an APBT. Although I love pit bulls I wouldn't want to take a bone away from one with a food aggression problem..

ahh... i didn't think of that! Good idea, I'll definatly try that. Emily isn't aggressive towards me, but she is aggressive towards my other dog, Duncan when he trys to go near her food, or her toys. Actually, Emily just wants every toy for herself - in fact some times she will pile them in her bed and sleep with them... hehe.

Thanks for the tip!!

Emily

Haha.. When I first got my boy we were playing with his toys one night, and it was before he had decided whether or not he liked his bed. I was sitting on the couch with all his toys in my arms and he would come up and try to take them from me.. So I threw one and he grabbed it and triumphantly laid down to chew on it until he realized I had more of "his" toys.. I threw them one at a time and he piled them all right in the middle of the living room floor. Then he promptly flopped down right on top of the pile and had a nap.. It was so cute : )

Emily is adorable! For some reason black pit bulls don't seem to be all that common around here. Actually, I live in a city with a pit bull ban now but where I lived before, they weren't very common.. They were usually brindles.. I really like the black, and she looks like such a happy girl : )