Nylon bones

Question
My dog eats the nylon chew bones. Should I allow this or restrict her to the rawhide bones? She is a one year old lab mix and I give her many things to chew to spare the furniture and my shoes.
Thank you for any info you can give me.

Answer
Jim,
                    
Look to offer her some of the specific chew toys on the market designed to be consumed. I found several available including; Nylabone Edibles, which apparently come in many different flavors from bacon and eggs, to banana, Dental Bones which are designed to help clean your dogs teeth as they are chewed up, Booda Velvet Bones which are made of cornstarch instead of plastic, Greenies, and the Nylabone Chew and Brush bone, which both work in the same way as the Dental Bone in aiding to clean the dogs teeth and gums in addtion to providing a chewing action.
Keep in mind that some dogs can display allergies to ingredients used in making these products such as cornstarch, in addtion to the plastic used in the non consumable nylon bones.
I do not recommend rawhides; because they are processed using harmful chemicals that build up in a dogs system and prove toxic.
The best recommendation I can offer, (and what I provide my six Mastiff breed dogs that would chew me out of house and home in chew toys, if I let them ), is to provide her with real beef bones. They can be purchased from your local grocery store butcher. If you can not find them in the meat section, than ask the butcher himself to save the large marrow filled bones for you. My butcher saves all his weekly bones and gives them to me free. Make sure they are large enough for a dog her size. (From 4 to 6 inches long). You can opt to boil them if you wish, but they are better given raw. I suggest you give them raw as cooking them, "cooks out" most of the nutrients. Dogs love to fish out the tasty bone marrow which is full of beneficial nutrients. Once she has left the bone she has been working on, then I suggests you boil it down, (making sure to provide her with the end produced broth), and place peanut butter in the hollow opening of the clean boiled bone. This will be like giving her a new treat all over again.
Again they are very inexpensive and help in providing her nutrients as apposed to chemicals and toxins. I am a firm believer in feeding dogs what is considered a raw for I can not begin to list the positive results I have come to see it has offered my own pets. I invite you to research the topic, as she is at a very young age and you can start now to help ensure her a lifetime without diet related conditions and diseases.
Look to the main ingredients in the food you are feeding, and know that by-products consist of not only indigestible items such as; feathers, hair, hooves, fecal matter, and diseased meats, deemed inconsumable for human consumption and are usually what is scraped off the floors of slaughter houses. Listed fillers are items such as hair, peanut hulls, and even newspaper. Not only are most of these foods indigestible, but they provide inadequate nutrients.
Most likely your dog is lacking the majority of the nutrients her body needs to function on a daily basis. This can not only leave her immune system weak and vulnerable, but can lead to most of the diseases that are pets come to be plagued by.
I will offer a few food alternatives to the current food you are feeding, if you are not already feeding one of them, and can promise you will see a complete change not only in her appearance, and behavior, but in her overall wellbeing. The foods I have come to recommend are the result of years of research on nutrition, and its relation to canine and feline diseases. Before I started my research I was also completely unaware of the direct relation. I came to realize that several of the breeds of dogs I own, (Mastiffs, and Great Danes), where all developed in Europe and it made complete sense, that they evolved eating food ingredients indigenous to that region.
Before hand my dogs my dogs suffered many ailments from allergies to the occasional onset of unexplained diarrhea. Once I started to provide them with foods made from lamb, chicken, and barley, and oatmeal, they did complete 180 turn around, and what seemed like overnight, all the existing conditions they where displaying previously disappeared.
Most commercial dog foods on the market here in America contain beef parts, and corn fillers. Knowing that Labradors have a tendency to skin problems and conditions; I recommend you look to switch her food to one of the following; Innova, (California Natural), Solid Gold, (Hund-n-flocken), Neura/Old Mother Hubbard, (Wellness), Natural life, (Lambaderm), or Natures Recipe (Adult lamb and rice, or their breed specific created food for sporting breeds of dogs). Most of these food can be found at large pet supply stores and although they are more costly, she will come to eat less, (since she will be filled with nutritional foods rather than indigestible fillers), and you will need to buy less. Your dog food bill will be actually less.
Finally, I recommend you add an over the counter supplement called, "The Missing Link" to her diet. It is also available at most large pet supply stores. It has not only all the proper levels of nutrients, vitamins and minerals our dogs need, but also high levels of omega fatty acids that will ward off any skin problems, excessive shedding, and allergies.
Again I invite you to research these findings; there is a great deal written informative information, in addtion to a large amount of information on the internet.
I try and inform as many of my clients and questioners of these facts as possible, and have had nothing but positive feed back. I hope this comes to offer you some insight as well, and that you will not need to find solutions for the possibility of such reoccurring conditions as the allergies and digestive disorders. Please feel free to get back to me for more information, or with any additional questions or concerns.
                                 Jodi