I started chewing on sticks… and you shouldn't
My dog chews on sticks, probably like most dogs out there. At first, I thought it was cute but then the broken shards started to pile up in the house. I would find them on the sofa. I would see ones that look like the very root of a tree, along with the dirt.
It got me thinking. Why do dogs chew on sticks? Rather than searching the internet for the answer, I decided to try it out myself.
So I went to the back yard and found a stick.
It was hard to find the appropriate stick to chew on. I imagine dogs aren’t as picky as I was. I didn’t want one with multiple spin-offs. I wanted a plain stick… and I found it.
Now I bet you are wondering if I washed it before sticking it in my mouth. I did. I was nervous about the germs a stick would have on it — this is the COVID era. But to get the true feeling of chewing on a stick, I let it dry out again. I figured chewing on a soggy stick was way different than chewing on a dry stick. I imagined that it wouldn’t have a satisfying CRUNCH.
“I doubt I’ll be able to break it,” I said to my friend as I eyed the stick. My dog was eyeing me, wondering why the heck I wasn’t giving the stick to her.
I took my first bite.
I got to admit, it was kind of a nice tension relief to sink my teeth into the stick. It gave a little bit under my bite. I felt it would give me an eccentric look if I was writing in a coffee joint.
But then the bark started to break off. Little flecks of dirt left my mouth feeling gritty. Who knew what else was coming off the stick and being deposited in my system. However, as my saliva softened it up, it was kind of like chewing on a hard straw. Spongey-ish.
I probably chewed on that stick for a good five minutes. And would I do it again? No, no I would not. My dog looked more than giddy to take it off my hands and break it into a million pieces on my clean floors. The moral of the story? Dogs chew sticks and we should leave it that way.
