Spoil Your Pointer the “Right” Way

ByAmy

Let’s face it – we all love spoiling our dogs. After all, that’s part of the joy of having one!

There are all kinds of ways you can spoil a Pointer, but one of my kids’ favorites involves giving our dog treats and chew toys. And I have to admit to giving him a few myself. Actually, between all of us, he gets more than a few every week, although we do try to limit it to no more than one or two dog cookies per day.

Our Pointer loves dog cookies. They’re good for his teeth because they’re crunchy, and the better brands actually have some nutritional value. But he also loves chew toys, and they can keep him busy for hours.

We used to give our dog rawhide chews, but we learned the hard way that they can be really dangerous. In fact, that’s why I’m sharing this story with you. One afternoon, our Pointer started happily chomping away on a big rawhide chewy. The next thing we knew, he started making horrible choking sounds. I ran over to where he was and by the time I got there it looked like he was really struggling to breathe. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I shoved my hand into the back of his mouth and felt around. Turns out, a piece of the chewy had broken off and it got stuck in his throat. After I yanked the slimy thing out he was fine – but it could have turned out much differently if I hadn’t been home when it happened.

The whole experience was pretty frightening, but it was a valuable lesson. From that day on, whenever we want to spoil our dog by giving him a treat or dog chew, we stay away from rawhide.

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