Making old bones new again

April 12, 2013 1:08 PM

I often give my dogs roasted beef "soup bones" straight from the butcher, the kind with marrow in them. After an evening's worth of undivided attention, they are stripped down to the bone and empty inside. What can I do to turn the hollow bones back into treats?

I have all these bones, and while the dogs still enjoy chewing on them, it's not like getting a good "treat". At the moment there's the better part of a cow scattered across my house. Rather than buy new bones, there has to be some way to transform them into something awesome. Boiling them in something flavored? Stuffing them with something? They're not like a Kong, where you can pour in a liquid and freeze - they're open on both ends. If there's something I can stuff them with and then dehydrate so it's harder to get at and won't go bad overnight, then that would be ideal. If I can stuff and freeze them so that I can make up a big batch at once, that would be great too.

As for flavors, the dehydrated sweet potato slices and liver that I make are big hits, but they really love anything even remotely edible.

Ideas?

(Required pics: Belle, Maia, and both)

posted by mireille to Pets & Animals (30 answers total)

Peanut butter would probably work.
posted by klugarsh at 1:11 PM on April 12, 2013 [4 favorites]

You could stuff them with peanut butter.
posted by asphericalcow at 1:11 PM on April 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

I bet if you put peanut butter in a Ziplock, cut off a corner, and squeezed it into the bone, it would stay put.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:11 PM on April 12, 2013

you could try stuffing them with something semi-liquid like peanut butter. You could probably put them on a cookie sheet or saran wrap to freeze them.
posted by randomnity at 1:11 PM on April 12, 2013

You could put both mashed sweet potato and liver inside the bones too, if they like those flavors. Again, just use a Ziplock or pastry bag.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:14 PM on April 12, 2013

Response by poster: Yeah, I thought about peanut butter (5 replies in the same minute!), but... that seems like an awful lot of peanut butter. These are big bones with large hollow spaces. If I used peanut butter, could I cut it with something with less fat? Maia's tummy (like many young huskies) is temperamental.

On preview - mashed sweet potato could work for sure.
posted by mireille at 1:15 PM on April 12, 2013

This is the only reason that Cheez Whiz exists.
posted by drlith at 1:15 PM on April 12, 2013 [4 favorites]

What about wet dog food, the kind from a can? It's designed for dogs, so it might be easier on their digestion than some people foods.
posted by decathecting at 1:19 PM on April 12, 2013

You could take some dry food and mix it with the peanut butter. This may have the extra benefit of giving your dog something to crunch on and distract from constantly digging at the bone.
posted by xingcat at 1:19 PM on April 12, 2013 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I thought about peanut butter (5 replies in the same minute!), but... that seems like an awful lot of peanut butter. These are big bones with large hollow spaces. If I used peanut butter, could I cut it with something with less fat?

Isn't bone marrow almost entirely made of fat?

Hmm... how about mashed canned fish, like sardines? Might make your house smell fishy though. Really, anything mashed could work... mashed carrots, bread soaked in broth and mashed up...

Oh, what if you melted cheese and poured it into a frozen bone? It would cool and stick to the walls of the cavity...
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:21 PM on April 12, 2013

In response to your update, with either PB or cheez whiz you don't need to stuff it full--just get some shoved their in the middle so that it smells like food and the persistent tongue can get just a bit of it. Of course, I may be mis-imagining your bones: are they long pieces or short little sections? A 6" piece of marrow bone is great for re-stuffing, but a 2" piece would get cleaned out pretty quickly. If you've only got short pieces, smoking them might revitalize them a bit.
posted by drlith at 1:21 PM on April 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

If you have left over stock (and a pot you don't care about) you can try to reflavor the bones by soaking them for a while. Maybe at a simmer but only on your grill. Seriously don't try this inside until you've done it outside. You could also include some left over veggies and try to almost burn a few of the bones for a little extra flavor. Let bones cool off & dry a bit before giving them back.

A friend used to store old bones in with new jerky treats. A bit of the jerky dust would rub off onto the bones and his dog would go to town.

If you do decide to refill the bones with something, do one bone and watch how your dog handles it -- coming home to peanut butter or liver smears on your furniture might not be fun. Gran used to be convinced that a cousin's dog had a 'nasty bottom' because of some brown stains that turned out to be slobbered out peanut butter.
posted by jaimystery at 1:29 PM on April 12, 2013

On the sweet potato tip, my former housemate used to puree peas (canned, I believe) and peanut butter together, stuff the bones with them and then freeze. Seriously, there were like 8 of these in the freezer at any given time. Her dogs loved it.
posted by kickingthecrap at 1:29 PM on April 12, 2013

Spray cheese works great in things like this, or roll up a kraft single and slide it in there, if you press it a bit it sticks to the walls of the bone making the dogs have to work harder to get it out. Wet dog food might work, or fill it with meat stock of some sort and freeze for a summer treat. Oh if you freeze PB too it takes them longer to dig out. Fill it with dry dog food, then put on a PB end cap to keep it in and freeze it. Avoid boiling or heating the bones though, once cooked they can splinter and that's when you get problems with bones. My dogs like creamed corn so that might work, though it could be messy.
posted by wwax at 1:31 PM on April 12, 2013

Baby food. I use it to make homemade treats for my dog, but I bet if you mixed it with some egg and oatmeal, you could fill the bones (using showbiz_liz's pb method) and bake them and it would make a nice, meaty, semisolid filling for them to work at.
posted by phunniemee at 1:31 PM on April 12, 2013

Whatever you decide to use, freeze them to make them last longer.
posted by Ufez Jones at 1:39 PM on April 12, 2013

Yeah, I thought about peanut butter (5 replies in the same minute!), but... that seems like an awful lot of peanut butter. These are big bones with large hollow spaces. If I used peanut butter, could I cut it with something with less fat? Maia's tummy (like many young huskies) is temperamental.

Freeze it. I sometimes take on old bone, packone side with PB, stuff part of an icicle or a freezee in there - Sometimes I use dog food, or stale crackers or whatever - and then cap with more peanut butter.

Then it goes in the freezer. This is the key step, I think.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:41 PM on April 12, 2013

You could take some dry food and mix it with the peanut butter.

Oh, yeah - an old friend of mine used to sort of roughly crush the kibble so that there were some almost powdery bits that acted like a binding agent (but still had some crunchy bits), and mix it with peanut butter; the crushed kibble helped keep the peanut butter from being too melty. Freeze and serve.
posted by rtha at 1:41 PM on April 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

I stand our old bones up on end in a plastic container in order to stuff and freeze them - this keeps one end sealed while I fill them up. I can do a container of 6-8 bones at a time this way. Usually I stuff them with a mixture of canned food, kibble, and veggies like peas or green beans.
posted by Squeak Attack at 1:46 PM on April 12, 2013

I tried keeping the hollowed-out bones but found the smell a bit too strong. Is there a trick to deodorizing them for reuse?

My dog loves pumpkin puree (the 100% pumpkin cans sold in the pie aisle) so much that I'll freeze it in ice cube trays and give it to him as treats. It has the added benefit that it helps with any poop issues, especially after those rich marrow bones. Heads-up: it makes an orange mess, so not a great idea unless you can give the bones to your dog outdoors.

My dog also goes nuts over peas straight out of the freezer (as well as mashed peas), yogurt, and avocado, which can all be used to stuff bones and then frozen. Too-ripe-for-humans avocados, according to my vet, are good for the coat and not harmful as long as the dog doesn't eat the skin or pit.

I'll also buy a large variety of whatever vegetables and overripe fruit are on sale at the local farmers' market every once in a while (including lots of leafy greens and parsley), process or blend everything in one huge batch and freeze it in ice cube trays. My dog then gets those to supplement his food whenever I feed him bones and meat instead of kibble. That could also go in a hollow bone, I assume.
posted by halogen at 1:47 PM on April 12, 2013

I put peanut butter! in bones daily for the dogs. If you use a butter knife and put a blob in the middle it keeps a dog entertained for whole minutes at a time.
posted by fieldtrip at 1:59 PM on April 12, 2013

Bake an egg inside? (gorgeous pups, btw.)

I feed my beasties a gruel made from oatmeal, pumpkin, and meat or mackerel. When I make it, it's not super stiff, but you could experiment with the amount of water in the oatmeal and/or thicken it with egg. Might also benefit from baking it inside the bone, but now I'm just guessing.
posted by sarajane at 2:17 PM on April 12, 2013

I happily give select raw bones to my hounds but not beef soup/marrow bones AKA wreck bones. These weight-bearing bones are significantly harder and denser than dogs' teeth. Giving them runs the risk of slab fractures, intestinal obstructions or simply, slowly wearing the teeth down until the roots are exposed. If you choose to take a risk, please don't ever bake, boil, steam, microwave or barbeque the bones -- or any bones you give to your dogs -- they will become brittle and even more dangerous.

I can give guidance on how to stuff and freeze dehydrated cow trachea for longish-lasting treats if that's of interest.
posted by vers at 3:02 PM on April 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

I've done this in the past. I make super super thick oatmeal with beef stock and then I mix it up with an equal portion of chunky peanut butter. Smearing it in with a spatula seems to fill it better than a pastry tube does. Then freeze.
posted by elsietheeel at 4:15 PM on April 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

I agree with those who say to freeze them. We stuff ours with canned dog food, only maybe a tablespoon or two per end, so a can stuffs about 7 bones for us. We freeze them and doggy gets one every morning when we leave the house. We thinks it takes her 10-15 minutes to get one cleaned out, long enough to distract her from the abandonment. One thing to know if you're going to take this approach is that the foods that have a pate-like texture rather than a stew-like texture. It's just way easier to work with for this purpose.
posted by juliapangolin at 4:18 PM on April 12, 2013

This! Well, sometimes. It's expensive.
posted by sleepingcbw at 7:19 PM on April 12, 2013

Do you own a juicer? The leftover pulp could be a fantastic filler for PB/whatever.

Wolves in the wild know to get into the stomachs of the herbivores that they take down and chow down on the semi-digested plant matter for fiber and additional vitamins/co-factors.
posted by porpoise at 9:18 PM on April 12, 2013

Yes, your dogs are beautiful. The one of them both sleeping...awwww!!

nthing pb and cheez whiz. Also you could mash a banana and freeze it in there.
posted by loveyallaround at 10:12 PM on April 12, 2013

Make up a batch of homemade dog treat batter, pack the bones with it, then bake according to the directions. We've bought storebought bones like this -- the original marrow is gone, they have a milkbone-like material inside.
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:56 PM on April 13, 2013

I do peanut butter or peanut butter mixed with dry dog food and then freeze them overnight. I've also used mashed banana when I've been out of pb. My dogs are on a diet so I either cut down on their breakfast or cut out the breakfast altogether if the bone has a large hollow that fits more peanut butter. But the marrow bones always vary in size so I just use the ones with the smallest hole, so I can fill it up with only about two tablespoons of pb (sometimes less). Approach avacados with caution.

Also want to mention to either wash or throw away the bones that aren't truly cleaned down to the bone. If there's any kind of meat or blood or whatever left on the bone it is a huge breeding ground for bacteria, which can give your dogs (as it did to both of mine once) bloody diarrhea and vomiting, leading to two rounds of antibiotics and a big vet bill. I still let my dogs eat bones but if they aren't completely clean or cleanable, I throw them away when they're done with them.
posted by triggerfinger at 7:13 PM on April 13, 2013