Rawhides - What Are They Really?

I've been getting rawhides for my dogs for quite some time and never gave it another thought. Everyone gets them for their pups. Right? I never gave it another thought about what they are. They're just fun for my pup.

But then one day I came across a piece describing what goes into a rawhide.

Yikes!

Rawhide chews come from the inner layer of the hide from any split hoofed animal. The hides themselves will become shoes, luggage and other goodies while the byproducts of manufacturing those products go into creating the rawhide chew.

But by the time the byproduct arrives at the facilities, DogTube says the product is often black and rotting, having not been refrigerated during transit.

The hides are then soaked in a sodium sulphide liming concoction.

They're then treated or washed with hydrogen peroxide.

They are then chemically enhanced with flavors.

During the description of the process, DogTube tossed out catch phrases like "toxic chemicals," "carcinogenic food coloring" and "toxic contaminates."

They say that the FDA has issued warnings about rawhides produced in China but that if a labeller does not reference nutritional value, they do not have to follow specific AAFCO rules.

When Adopting A New Dog, Update Or Install A Chip!

I do not believe we can stress this enough, in that adding an ID microchip to your pet is an invaluable service that can come in handy some day.

Now if you don't care about your dog, that's fine. Who needs to spend money on a chip with you have a collar, right? Wrong... collars can come off or even be removed and that's that. Your dog is now fight bait.

I was just reading a piece on where a man's boat had sunk, and he thought his dog had drowned also. But the dog escaped the sinking boat, swam a mile to shore, then made his way to a church that the man and his dog frequented.

Though the man did not update the microchip information, the pastor and local law enforcement did the math, knew a man had lost his boat and dog, and after putting the pieces together, reunited them.

What an awesome story.

But a few things came to mind in regards to this situation.

1: The man adopted the dog but never updated the microchip. Always update your microchip information when you adopt a new pup. It truly is super simple.

2: Do an annual double check on the information in the microchip database to make sure all information is up to date. Just in case someone who is part of the background process does something stupid or nefarious.

3: Had there been no microchip, he should have "installed" one.

4: For those who think dogs are just animals, events like this, where the dog swam to shore then found his way to their church to find his human seems to put your callous mindset off in the category of animal ignorance.