sea4th Posted December 15, 2003 Report Share Posted December 15, 2003 Joe is my soon-to-be year old pup. He has this thing for scrungies---you know, the things used to pull & tie back long hair. There have been times I've crashed on the couch and awakened the next morning to find that the scrungie that was in my hair when I fell asleep, was no where to be found. I'd find it a few days later on a daily poop patrol. I know it's Joe because (1) on a couple of occasions I heard "hacka, hacka" and up came my missing scrungie covered in foam & bile and (2) I felt the little sucker actually pull it from my hair, turned around & caught him in the act, holding my scrungie. Anyway, tonight, he ate an entire package of them, 4 to be exact. I'm not comfortable with him eating one. Several is making me downright nervous. I'm thinking of giving him some mineral oil to lube it through and out of his system. Any ideas? Thanks. Vicki Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK dog doc Posted December 17, 2003 Report Share Posted December 17, 2003 Vicki, I'm sorry I didn't get to this sooner (that on-call thing, dang it!) I'm assuming that things came out (so to speak) all right, or we would have heard? As a general rule, mineral oil can help lubricate objects that are in the gut and help them move on through. It doesn't always work, but it isn't likely to do any harm (mineral oil is not digested, so it won't cause pancreatitis like a huge wad of vegetable oil might). If you catch them within an hour of ingestion, you can induce vomiting (not if it's a caustic, of course, and not if the dog is not alert and responsive and mentally normal). After an hour, a foreign body like that MIGHT still be in the stomach, but it might not. If not, inducing vomiting won't help. Did it all work out okay for Joe? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sea4th Posted December 18, 2003 Author Report Share Posted December 18, 2003 Thanks for your reply, AK Dog Doc! Joe is OK. He seemed down that evening. Maybe synthetics don't agree with his tummy. I have not seen anything. I can't tell on my poop patrols whether they came out the back. The snow has everything covered. And he didn't hork it up, but there have been times that almost a week has gone by before it came up. Could that be possible? But again, thanks for asking--and for your advice. Joe's got some weird tastes anyway---along with CO, Juta. Vicki Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK dog doc Posted December 18, 2003 Report Share Posted December 18, 2003 Foreign bodies do sometimes hang up in the stomach (mainly) or elsewhere (rarely). Usually if they make it out of the stomach they either go through or get stuck somewhere and make you take the dog to surgery. We once took two golfballs out of the stomach of a Lab. The owner reported that the dog had begun occasional bouts (two or three days at a stretch) of vomiting, starting over a year before, but had recently had an abrupt increase. We took the dog to exploratory and opened up the stomach (which had a big hard round palpable object inside it. Go figure.) Out came golfball #1, all pretty and white. And on more feeling around, out came golball #2, now with a delicate gold-bronze patina, evidently from being in a dog stomach for more than a year. The owner could precisely pinpoint the time, because of the vomiting and the type of ball it was (he'd switched brands, and home was the dog's only access to golfballs.) I've seen partial socks in Finn's poops, and he's never been to surgery (evidently I tend to kick my socks off while napping - I'm wearing them in the first place because it's cold, but after I warm up, I apparently toe them off without waking. Finn is fond of sneaking around the end of the bed, nosing under the comforter for prey.) He did have one day where he was feeling poorly, vomited three or four times (went to work with me for Xrays and hawk-eyed observation by me and the entire staff, with whom he is popular); but the next day he was well again, and I never saw any sock parts that time - but it is dark and snowy out, so I might have missed that. At any rate, something fabric like that would be a lot less likely to stay hung up in the stomach - not impossible, just not likely. So chances are good that it went on through and you just didn't see it. Strangely, if you take something like that and wad a little s**t around it, it's fairly well camoflaged. Don't ask me why; just one of the mysteries of physics, no doubt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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