Hi! We had a big scare yesterday. Wuki was with us eating a Rawhide bone, and he was so fast that the bone got small. At some point he started choking on a big scrap he swallowed, having difficult breathing. My kids and wife started panicking, and i was able to open his mouth but it was already too deep, so i called him and we got down to stay away from the kids, tilted him a bit on the garden, rubbed his belly, but no effect. At that time i myself was starting to panic too, but Wuki got away to the grass, and forced the thing out, eventually. A big thin chunk of white rawhide, got out with mucus... I then gave him a good boul of water, we stayed with him until 2 pm, when he finally was starting to get sleepy, so we took him to his dog house. Man i was so nervous that i went to see him 2 or 3 more times in the night... :/ Poor thing. He was ok though, wagging his tail as if nothing had happened. I called the Vet, and she said if he was ok, no diarrhea or vomiting again, she should not need to see him. Still... It got me thinking about Rawhide bones again... If you give them to your dog, do not EVER leave him alone with it! Oh, and in the meantime, time to know how to apply a Heimlich maneuver on dogs. :/
What a scare and I'm glad Wuki is OK. All's well that ends well, but yes, never leave a puppy unattended with rawhides, chews or bones etc. as they can swallow large chunks with a potentially fatal outcome
The vet says they are still crazy and sometimes they don't even chew things before eating them. When the chunk's enough to swallow they simply do it. He does the same with kibble, sometimes swallowing without chewing his food... Crazy pup! :/
I'm glad Wuki's ok. It can happen with other things too. Tuppence snatched a large piece of apple she had found on the path when out for a walk and swallowed it very quickly, probably because she knew she shouldn't have scavenged it. It took about twenty minutes for her to be sick and she could only lie on the ground retching until it reappeared. Fortunately, like Wuki, she was then fine. Very worrying, though.
Oh what a scare! I used to leave Belle alone with rawhide, but I don't leave Coco, now I know better. I take it away when it is small. He doesn't get them often, but I do still give rawhide chews supervised, he really enjoys them.
That's one of the things that put me off rawhide. Dogs frequently eat raw bones (meaty ones) and puke them up then re-eat them. Rawhide needs to be supervised IMHO.
In our house Stanley only gets rawhide when I'm in the room to watch him. The only thing he gets unsupervised is kongs
I'm glad that Wuki is okay now -- what a scare! No doubt it won't be the first time he will wolf down something and then regurgitate it -- I have noticed that dogs are quite adept at vomiting up anything that is bothering them (it does sound just awful!). There are YouTube videos that demonstrate the Heimlich manoeuvre on dogs. I'm one who believes a pup younger than 6 months should never be left alone. I know there are many people who train their pups to be okay emotionally being left alone, but I compare them to babies, and I don't know one person who'd leave their baby alone.
