# Your Dog Swallowed WHAT!!!



## ericwd9 (Jun 13, 2014)

We have a useful sticky in "Health" concerning foreign bodies ingested by dogs. I have been moved to begin this thread, which hopefully will, if it is successful become a sticky.

Just how do you train your dog not to eat or swallow those things that are potentially bad or fatal to it. Not to mention those things that you might leave out for human food that a dog would find to be irresistible.

































Here is one of a number of veterinary articles dealing with foreign body ingestion:
Dogs Swallowed Objects - Swallowed Objects in Dogs | petMD

Here are some X ray images of swallowed objects:
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiR767fw-HRAhXCUZQKHdUjDGIQFgg1MAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2F2020%2Fphotos%2Fphotos-dogs-eat-strange-things-12097505&usg=AFQjCNF76S21bbkrtZj5tVji_3z4C1UXLA

Just how can you prevent your dog from counter surfing, eating rocks, sticks, balls and other dangerous objects?








"Yum" daddy this smells real good. "GET DOWN" Gracie. Puppy love!

I have my ways of training that can be useful in this area. Many of them have been expounded by me in, other threads, in the past. I intend to uncover them and re-post them here along with other new advise on this contentious subject.

Please post your experiences here and how you might have handled the situation. Show us any curative or preventative training that worked for you.

I'll start it off with prevention.
Always feed your dog in the same feeding station with the same bowl where possible. Have the dog "sit" and "stay back" from the offered food. After the dog has sat and made eye contact say "fido EAT" pointing first to the dog as you say "fido" and to the food or offering as you say "EAT" Never feed your dog in any other way. Treats can be hand fed for good behavior. The treat should always be accompanied by "good girl/boy" said in a crooning high pitched voice. Eventually treats will not be needed. The "good girl" will elicit the same reaction in the dog that the treat did. (See Pavlov's conditioning) In time, a dog, especially a puppy, who has always been fed in this way will not eat at all without the command. I can put down a TV dinner or leave a steak on the counter and Grace will not eat it. In fact she will deliberately look away to minimize the temptation and show me her obedience for which she is rewarded by a morsel of the food being placed in her bowl and the magic word said.

As with all training it needs constant reinforcement for the life of the dog. Grace has recently begun to eat sticks she finds easily about her domain. She has barfed up and pooed out the remains of these and so far (fingers crossed" she has not suffered that I am aware of. This is a new behavior pattern and the retraining will be covered by a repeat of a post made recently elsewhere.

Here is a series of posts concerning swallowing rocks:
http://www.poodleforum.com/23-gener...ain-dolly-not-play-rocksrock.html#post2706457

Eric


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## Caddy (Nov 23, 2014)

Eric, I think this thread will be invaluable not only for training and prevention, but for diagnosis and possibly life saving. When our dogs have diarrhea or loose stool our first thoughts go to diet which is the usual culprit, but also consider the presence of a foreign object. Some dogs will throw up bile first thing in the morning because their stomach is empty, but it can also mean their system is trying to rid itself of an object that won't pass naturally. I know we can't rush them to the vet every time they have loose stool or throw up (nor should we), but do consider and be mindful that it could be more serious, and possibly life threatening.


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## peppersb (Jun 5, 2011)

Veterinary Practice News actually has an annual contest for which vet can produce the best xray showing what animals ate. Here are the winners for 2015 and 2014.

2015 X-Ray Contest Winners

2014 X-Ray Contest Winners


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## peppersb (Jun 5, 2011)

double post


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

The core of this problem (and I agree it is potentially hugely common) is prevention. The key thing to train is "leave it!" coupled with vigilance about what your dog is actually doing with the things it picks up. The other things to make sure are rock solid behaviors are "drop it (or out)" and "give." Caddy, I know you are careful and this was clearly just an awful accident. There will be times like for Dolly where it just happens and I am glad she has recovered so well so quickly.

My dogs have eaten many strange things. Lily has managed to get to chocolate enough times (my bad) that she has a strong liking for it now. I cannot leave any chocolate anything anywhere other than in my upper kitchen cabinets. Lily has also eaten weather stripping that she peeled off a door frame, a special Easter egg that BF's grandmother had made, book spines and my shoes & underwear. I have always thought that were she to have a premature death it would be from something she ate. thankfully between our preventive efforts and her maturity she now only really would go for chocolate if she had the chance and soft paper items like tissues and paper towels. The paper eating is like a pica for her. Thankfully she has never needed surgery to remove foreign items.

Javelin's oddest thing to eat was a hard boiled egg that he helped himself to (with the shell on). Thankfully I caught him early in the mischief.

Peeves is pretty decent about not eating stupid stuff.

There are other things to do training-wise that can help in this situation. One thing we have done is to make sure all of our dogs have very soft mouths with respect to us and our hands. I can put my entire hand into the mouth of any of my dogs to give a pill (they don't chew their heartworm meds even though it is chewable) and conversely I can also pull forbidden objects out of their mouths even as they start to swallow and have pulled tissues and napkins out of Lily's throat as they were just about to disappear from view. We taught and maintain the soft mouth by playing with their mouths everyday. One or the other of us who has a dog nearby will say "show me your snarly teeth" as the words that precede a close exam of their teeth, opening and closing their mouths, touching teeth and tongues. We do similar things with feet and tails.

Another thing I would urge people to train on as well is the acceptance of a basket muzzle. While one would not want to have a dog need to wear muzzle all the time, it can be a good stop gap in a situation where you are trying to use other methods to prevent ingestion of dangerous objects. A basket muzzle can also be an important tool for the safe handling of an injured dog that might be prone to biting as a reaction to pain. My dogs all can wear basket muzzles.


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## Caddy (Nov 23, 2014)

Those X-ray's were pretty amazing peppersb, I wondered how they managed to swollow some of the objects. Lily you are right that I am very careful and diligent with the girls, which is exactly why this is an important subject to discuss. Dolly and Abbey are both good with the drop it and leave it command, but they don't understand I mean leave it forever and a day. I've been working on that a lot this week! As for things they shouldn't eat, Dolly doesn't really chew or get into things (except rocks of course, lol), Abbey does love a good Kleenex from the waste basket but never touches the toilet paper roll which is odd. I'd be interested in how other teach leave it to see if it differs from what I'm doing. I drop a treat or hold it in my open palm and say leave it, then I offer a better treat with my other hand , or throw another treat and say get it. Sometimes I'll turn my back to them and see if they take it or leave the room.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Caddy I pretty much teach leave it as you described.


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## ericwd9 (Jun 13, 2014)

I taught "leave everything" except that which is in your toy basket and those things I give you. All else is off limits, period. This does not work for all dogs and all objects.
Eric.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

For our dogs, leave it has evolved to mean leave it/anything alone over time. Leave that pill I just dropped on the floor. Leave Peeves food alone Lily. Javelin leave Lily alone. At this point I think they hear something equivalent to don't even think about doing that stupid thing you are considering just now.


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## ericwd9 (Jun 13, 2014)

I once said "leave it" to my wife Judy when she was insisting on cleaning up after me. _*Never Again!!!*_


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

I find that when students come to my office if I invite them to sit it sounds like an order to a dog, so I have switched to telling them to get comfortable.


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## Caddy (Nov 23, 2014)

Eric that gave me a good laugh, but I imagine it wasn't too funny at the time. DH tells people when I say ah ah, the girls and him all look to see who's doing something they're not suppose to.


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## Caddy (Nov 23, 2014)

After we discovered Dolly swallowed a rock she went through surgery and is now on day 10 of her recovery. Her staples were removed today and I'm happy to report it went smoothly with little to no discomfort. She has 4-5 days left of limited activity, in which time she will be wearing "the collar" with no adverse effects. For those of you who will disagree with this method, I can only say you haven't been here through her ordeal or seen the 8" plus incision on her little tummy. I will not allow this to happen to her again, and will do and use anything I must to prevent it. That being said, we will be using the vibration option on the collar and I think (and hope) that will be more than enough to deter her. We purchased a good collar that has 3 options, tone, vibration and shock with variable strengths. DH and I have both tried it on ourselves to get a good idea of the feeling and strength level options. We have had some mild weather over the past few days so lots of rocks have come through the snow to temp her. The girls have two toy boxes, one inside and one outside, and there is never a shortage of things to play with. In addition to these we purchased a few new great toys for outside to make the rocks less desirable. I will post when we begin our "I hate rocks" training.


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## ericwd9 (Jun 13, 2014)

Rocks can bite!!


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