Oh dear, my precious Maisie is going to hate her mom for a little while… because she's not being allowed to chew on ANY STICKS after getting a stick STUCK IN HER MOUTH this morning on her walk! She was carrying a stick along, I may have asked her to drop it, not sure, but she dropped it but had a chunk stuck in her mouth. She was wildly pawing at her face to try to get it out, I tried to put my fingers in there to investigate and couldn't really tell where it was, so I phoned the emergency vet and dragged her (pawing her face off) to the car and drove there. Thankfully by the time we arrived, I went around to let her out of the car, and lo and behold, there was a chunk of wood on the seat - she must have gotten it out somehow (maybe when she relaxed and stopped whacking her face). We checked in at the emergency vet anyways because I wanted to make sure nothing was left in her mouth, but after waiting 2.5 hours, with no end of the wait in sight, and Maisie getting SUPER frustrated by not being able to play with any animal she saw, we went home. A vet tech looked at her mouth and didn't see anything and I poked around and couldn't feel anything - but I'm still taking her in to my regular vet tomorrow. Anyways… she has chewed on a million sticks but I guess it just takes one. I already don't let her run with them, but I am guilty of letting her sit and chew on them for a little bit since she never eats them. The chunk of wood she got stuck was about the length of a pinky finger and a bit thicker. I think she's fine, just wanted to share her tail of woe and another PSA that sticks aren't safe. We may buy a safestick for use in fetching at the beach.
Yikes! And I was just starting to try to give Myles more freedom in this area by not always taking them or telling him to leave it. What a scare!
Mine are luckily not that interested in sticks. If they do pick one up, I exchange it for something else - normally a pine cone. Sticks scare me after reading some of the horror stories.
How scary, I'm glad Maisie is ok. Just remember to take toys with you for walks & she'll soon forget about stick My dogs are not allowed to play with sticks for nearly two years now as we had really scary adventure with a stick cutting Barney's tongue open.
Poor love, glad she is alright , sticks are my nemesis , I take tennis balls wherever I go, but Sam still picks sticks up to carry . I bought a safestix for him as a substitute , works well .
Wow! Glad she is okay. Sticks have always scared me and even with our other dog Maggie, I've kept them away and still do with Maui now ... as much as I can at least! The thing Maui loves to get at and I have to be very vigilant about is STONES!! She loves chewing on those. We have stones instead of the usual pine straw around the shrubs and my husband just added some 'lava rock' along a step walkway .... well, she LOVES that! Early on (we've only had her 3 weeks now), she picked up a lava rock and began chewing and actually started to choke! I had to really get in her mouth and pull it out. So we watch her closely on that one! Puppies ... they are just crazy!
What a fright...and what a wait at the Vet's!Glad she is ok,you hear some absolutely shocker stories about sticks. I've been lucky too,no interest whatsoever in sticks ,phew! X
After saying that mine have no interest, Willow found a massive one in the river this evening. Typical. It was so big, though, I wanted to take a picture, so I called her to turn towards me, which she did, promptly spat it out and sat. Hehe, good girl. So, no photo of it, but she also had no interest in picking it up again. Stones are definitely more her thing. I found her earlier chewing up a bit of roof slate. How can that be fun?! I obviously removed it very quickly and checked her mouth for cuts. Then swept up the terrace, although there was no more, so goodness knows where she got it from.
Scooby is a stick & stone lover - I (nearly) always take his Kong Safestix to carry - it certainly stops him picking up random sticks, he is very happy with it.
