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VERIFY: Bone treats can hurt dogs, but it's rare

A trending Facebook post warns you not to buy them, but is it right?

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Those holiday-themed treats temp any pet parent, but a post on Facebook has been shared more than 300,000 times warning: "Many of these so called treats end up with the dog "enjoying" some time in a veterinary surgery over Christmas."

The post even has comments like this one from Dena: "These things did send my dog to the vet. Almost killed her."

To Verify, we went to Lawndale Veterinary Hospital, one of the leading treat manufacturers and the FDA.

"I have removed every one of those types of products from an animal before," said Dr. Kenny Crawford. "It's not common, but it's life threatening. And it's pretty catastrophic for the animal."

Doctor Crawford has been a vet for almost 30 years. He says it's not just holiday themed treats. But any dog bone you need to be careful with.

"Anything that has bone, horn, cartilage, rawhide or even just dense compressed food material can lead to obstructions," he said.

Surgery to remove the bone pieces can cost $3,000. But folks at Pet Factory says these kinds of problems are rare. The company bills itself as America's leading source for premium rawhides.

"We track every single complaint," said Pet Factory Senior VP Greg Hill. "The amount of issues where a dog does swallow a piece of rawhide of the millions of pieces we sold, it's like one or two a year."

We also went to a federal agency without a dog in the fight: the FDA. They list the "reasons not to give your dog bones" on their website saying bones and bone treats pose risks of "blocked intestines, choking, oral cuts and wounds, vomiting, diarrhea, rectal bleeding, and death."

So we can verify, the dog treats can cause problems for your pet, but that's rare. Still it's something to chew on.

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