We have all sorts of expressions surrounding dogs and bones.
“He is like a dog with a bone.”
“Knick knack paddy whack, give a dog a bone.”
“I’ve got a bone to pick with you” refers to a dog’s passion.
Even the phrase “bone of contention” refers to the way dogs will struggle and fight over a bone.
Oddly, however, I suspect that most dog owners don’t have much experience with why dogs and bones—real bones—are so legendary. This is because most stores don’t have real bones. They have plastic and rubber toys shaped like bones. They have rawhide chews. They have ropes tied like bones. They have preposterous bone shapes that squeak, as if dogs have some innate desire to hear a squeak.
But they don’t have actual bones. As a result, most dog owners don’t even think about the topic except in the abstract.
This intrigues me. It’s like people are treating their pets the way they treat themselves. In the same way, people today eat vast amounts of processed foods, food-like things, chemicals shaped like food, pretend food, and enhanced food. But it is the unusual person these days who would have a clue about what to do with a whole fish, a box of seasonal vegetables out of the ground, or a standing rib roast.
It’s sad but true that most people’s diets are a long way from the state of nature. It’s true even with milk. If you want it raw, you have to search for it. If you want bread without preservatives, you have to be a very fussy shopper.
We seem to have done to pets what we have done to ourselves. The life experience that people give them is filtered through industrial machinery, processed into dried pellets, encased in synthetic products, cushioned in artificial ways, and constantly injected with various potions to gum up their natural immune systems.
This is all quite remarkable and easily fixable. If you hop down to your local meat cutter or find a small grocer who sells meat, you might be able to find a bag of what dogs really need, which is an uncooked bone from a cow. It can be most any part of the cow, and it should be packed with marrow and meat scraps. You can find frozen bags full for $1 to $3 a pound.
Again, the bone must be uncooked. Cooked bones soften, and a dog can get through it easily. But an uncooked bone can engage a dog for hours, days, even weeks. What you will observe will amaze you. The result resembles a cleaned marble sculpture, like a masterpiece. It’s the result of surprising and admirable skill.
The first realization is that a dog with an actual bone is transformed in personality, reaching deep into the instinctual well from its wolf ancestry. The focus begins. The realization hits: This is real stuff. Then the rest of the world disappears. You don’t need to do anything: no chattering, no throwing, no play. Just watch.
The dog suddenly finds use of its paws, deploying them to their maximum functionality to situate the bone properly. Each tooth is engaged in a highly precise way to tear, scrape, gnaw, and chew. The back teeth serve a real function, and the front-row teeth scrape at the marrow. And the canines find their true purpose, too: to puncture and break.
The focus and discipline you observe is nothing short of a marvel. If humans could approach any task with the persistence, discipline, skill, scrupulosity, focus, and raw determination with which a dog tackles a bone, we would have cities on Mars by now.
Here we find the basis of the expression “a dog with a bone.” It means someone so incredibly dedicated to a task or topic that nothing can distract or deter him. And this is a perfect analogy. But it is always an exaggeration.
We do not and cannot replicate this, at least not without the assistance of psychiatric drugs. But for dogs, it all comes naturally. They don’t need to practice. The skills are all embedded in their DNA ready for instant deployment under the right environment. Dogs and real bones are meant for each other.
Did you know that brushing the teeth of dogs has become something that people often do, even hiring professionals for the job? It’s true. It’s big business. It’s also utterly preposterous. A dog that regularly chews bones will end up with gleaming pearly whites like you have never seen before. They are blindingly beautiful, exactly as they should be, not because of idiotic dog toothbrushes and paste but because of the bone alone.
If you give a dog a bone, not only will its teeth be cleaned, but also its breath will improve. This might be the most welcome change. Modern pet food is a major cause of pet halitosis, which quickly goes away with a good bone.
The best bones also become a source of food, including the marrow, which provides calcium and goodness knows what else. It also provides enormous happiness, and that much is unbearably obvious. The dog’s temperament will change from disgruntled to happy.
What is the downside? Of course people ask, and they seek out every conceivable excuse for not providing a dog its most desired thing. You will be told that a bone will contaminate the dog with salmonella and E. coli. They will develop digestive disorders. Their teeth will be damaged and break (ironically, this is possible precisely because teeth are weakened by a lack of calcium). Bones will cause choking and damage to the guts. You will hear that they are too high in fat.
It’s not like these criticisms and dangers are entirely mythical. But as with all things, the question must be: How great is the risk and compared with what? People deal with these alleged dangers by replacing bones with processed, sanitized, industrialized, synthetic carbo mush and crunchies, which end up depleting every bit of strength, power, natural instinct, and joy from a dog’s life. They are so unhealthy that they need doctors to squeeze their anal glands periodically.
Then we look at these pathetic excuses for the successor to the wolf and proclaim them healthy. And they are dead in 10 years.
In other words, people have done to their pets what they do to themselves. In the name of health, we inject them with countless potions, feed them dreck, and drain away all natural energy. In the name of safety, we take away all resilience. In the name of risk avoidance, we deplete the capacity to manage real life. It’s bad enough to see this happen to humans but truly abusive and awful to see what people do to their pets.
Sadly, and despite all rhymes, songs, and sayings, people have nearly universally denied their dogs the very thing that they most want and that most fires up their core talents and energies. The problem is easily reversible. For goodness’ sake, give that dog a bone!
And then watch, learn, and emulate. There are many things humans can learn from the way a dog takes to a bone. Imagine if humans took to the cause of freedom in the same way.
Go then and do likewise.
