I want to give my 30lb dog an ear chew because she looooooves to chew, but the one time I did, she swallowed the last third of it whole. Is there a way to prevent that, besides taking the treat away before they get to the end of it?
I wish I could magically shove one into a kong or something similar so that she could nibble and worry it but not access the entire thing.
Some chews just aren't good options for some dogs. I think, like foods that are dangerous for them, sometimes we just have to be the adult and not let them have things that pose a hazard. The other thing you might try is to cut the ears up into bite size chunks and put them in a treat dispensing toy, or freeze them into Kong filling so she can free little chewy pieces that aren't a choking risk if she swallows them whole. Depending on how she chews, maybe you could freeze a whole ear into a big chicken broth cube? Maybe that will prevent her from swallowing big chunks. With my girls, I have a few different kinds of dental chews and rawhides (twisted sticks, pressed sticks and circles) that they do well with, and I alternate between those treats, as well as treat dispensing toys, as activities for when I leave the house.
They have various sizes of raw hides, ears, etc. What I normally do is I purchase a raw hide, chew, hoof, antler, horns, etc, that is the size, or a few sizes up for my dog. When you buy one that's for dogs bigger than your dog, they can't finish it as fast, and it'll allow them to have the same amount of fun chewing on it before it gets too small. Then take it away when it does get too small, but she/he was still able to get the same amount of fun/entertainment/savoring out of it. I normally give the last bit (since it's still pretty big to smaller dogs, my girl is 90lbs) to my aunts Chihuahua or shih-tzu, and they finish it off instead of throwing it away. I keep them in a bag and deliver them to her on the weekends. Binky's scraps are about the size of the ones they sell at the store for their size breeds. So it all works out :)
You can save all of her/his scraps, and make smaller treats out of them. Have a scraps jar, and every once in the while break all the scraps down into smaller treat size pieces. Then your scraps jar turns into a treats jar! Be like the native Indians, and utilize every last bit! :)