I hope I don't offend, or upset too many people here, BUT..

One of my neighbours had a 5 year old Staffie. They gave hime a cooked bone a few days ago. It splintered and ended up piercing his heart. He was PTS on Friday :( So please, please do not give a cooked bone to your dog.

How awful :(, so sad.

A local pet shop assistant, knowing I fed my dogs raw and sometimes bought poultry necks from there decided to try some for her dog but cooked them.   Fortunately the dog came to no harm but I was horrified when she told me and stressed to her that cooked bones were definitely out.

I know that raw bones are not as hard as cooked but i'm not convinced that raw is not capable of equal damage to a dog. Even I can see that sharp pionty bits are produced as a dog chews a bone, and without all the fur and feathers the wild animals eat with the bones that help wrap the sharp bits up! they must have a good chance of causing damage?

I don't think it is only the hardness of cooked bones but the fact that they splinter Merlot.  My understanding with raw bones, like chicken wings, is that by the time the dog has chewed through the meat, the bones are pretty much crushed within the meat.  Certainly marrow bones do sometimes produce sharp edges but then the dog doesn't totally eat those, they are more for recreation.

Nothing of course is without risk but cooked bones IMO are 100 times more dangerous than raw.

I have recently started feeding raw & was woried to begin with. However, if you search the net there is a lot of good positive advice regarding 'safely' feeding raw meat & bones. I don't think that I could have tried raw when I first got my dog though. He hadn't had a good start & he would bolt his food as if the food was to be his last meal. He takes his time now, but after researching feeding on the net, it seems that your dog is much more likely to die from bloat rather than getting a raw bone cause problems. It's each to his own though, what suits one dog certainly does not suit another. I am certain that rice & grains does not suit my dog.

What I can't understand is how these pet shops sell cooked bones if they are dangerous?

Beardy that is something I have wondered as well. Things like the pigs ears and sheeps feet that I have seen on sale seem very brittle and look as though they would shatter into sharp edged pieces. I too feed raw but have never fed the pigs ears etc you can buy in pet shops - I am confident with feeding raw bones to my dog but not so confident about those "treats". As you say - you feed what you feel comfortable with. :)

Pig ears go soft when the dog chews them, just like rawhide. They are a fave around here.

>>Pig ears go soft when the dog chews them, just like rawhide. They are a fave around here<<

They also get stuck and dogs choke on them which is why they are not allowed around here in spite of the fact that mine love them. I have had to hang deef upside down and shake him and also put my fingers into the back of his mouth to remove pieces that have got stuck. I have also heard one story from a friend about a JRT that had a blockage caused by one that he just hadn't chewed properly. He ended up with an infection and had to have part of his intestine removed. My friend was mortified as she had been buying them in bulk for her dogs and supplying the owner with some as it worked out cheaper for her :-(