The Perfect Dog Chew

It’s raining buckets outside and your excited puppy is bored. What should you do? Provide him with the perfect dog chew, which provides hours of indoor fun during a rainy day — it’s the ultimate game for dogs! 🙂

With all the interactive food puzzles on the market, we’ve forgotten one of the basic games: a good long-lasting dog chew. Don’t be fooled. It takes lots of energy, concentration and exercise to chew on something for hours. Plus, dogs crave chewing, especially puppies — it’s a natural behavior. Also, giving your dog a chew teaches him to happily remain in one spot, which most puppies and adolescent dogs need to learn.

Perfect Dog Chew Size

It’s vital to find the perfect chew size for your dog or puppy. As a general rule, if a chew fits in a dog’s mouth, meaning when he closes his mouth,  you can’t see it. It’s too small. When in doubt, choose a larger size. There’s nothing worse when a dog swallows the entire chew toy — yikes!

My Favorite Dog Chews

There are a bunch out there and my dogs have tried them all. When I worked as a vet tech, I assisted in many surgeries to remove large knots of rawhide stuck in the intestinal tract. We called it the zipper surgery (that was scary stuff).

 I have three requirements for dog chews:  

Easy to digest, will not break into large pieces (will not get caught in the intestinal tract), and dogs must love them.

Before I tell you my fav dog chew, you must understand, my dogs are power chewers. This means they are furry termites and could chew through dry wall if allowed. 🙂

Fanna’s Favorite Chew: Bully Sticks

Yes, those stinky bully sticks are my fav chews for dogs! My dogs love them. They pass through the stomach and intestinal tract with minimal issues (maybe a bit of gas here and there), usually will not cause diarrhea and the stick remains intact even with power chewers. While many rawhides are compressed in stick form, large chunks can be chewed off and swallowed. A bully stick is whole, meaning it’s not compressed and nature made it this way. If you want to know what bully sticks are made of, then Google “What are bully sticks made of?” I won’t discuss that here, as we’re a G-rated blog!

I know there are vegetable-based chews out there, which work the same way as bully sticks. You’re more than welcome to try them. My dogs don’t love them so we stick to bully sticks. 🙂

Don’t forget to always supervise your dog when he’s chewing any type of chew.

In this video, I explain what chew supervision looks like:

I want to hear from you! What’s your dog’s favorite chew toy or indoor game for dogs?