Here are a few tips to help prevent your pet from eating everything:
- Make sure you don’t leave clothes lying around (in particular socks and undies!)
- Ensure your bins have good lids which can’t be opened by pets.
- You may want to keep bins up high or behind a closed door to keep cheeky noses away!
- If you throw away yummy smelling things, it would be a wise idea to empty the bin right away to help avoid your pet’s temptation!
- Encourage kids to put their toys away and to make sure they only let pets play with pet toys, not kid toys which may be unsafe.
- Monitor your pet’s toys for any tears or breaks. As soon as a toy becomes broken, throw it away to help minimize the risk of your pet swallowing pieces of that toy.
- Keep your pet occupied and both mentally and physically stimulated. Pets who exercise more and have things to do tend to be less destructive and less likely to eat foreign objects.
We’d like to introduce Shadow
Don’t let his innocent face fool you, Shadow is a very cheeky boy!!
Shadow LOVES to play with toys and is notorious for swallowing things he isn’t meant to!
Shadow has had 3 ex-lap surgeries in his short time due to eating things he has cheekily got his nose into despite his parents best efforts to dog proof their home! (Thank goodness for pet insurance right!?)
Despite his parents best efforts in watching him and keeping items out of reach, Shadow ALWAYS finds a way to nibble on something new!
Shadow’s latest adventure involved one of his nephew’s dinosaur toys. His parents became worried when they noticed Shadow had pooped a few dinosaur arms and legs . . . .
Shadow became sick pretty quickly. He started to vomit and felt very flat and lethargic. He even went off his food.
Having seen this behaviour before, his parents knew they needed to seek veterinary help and so Shadow was brought in for x-rays and further work up to determine the cause of his illness.
Shadow was up and down for a few days which lead us to believe the body of the dinosaur had been sitting in his stomach, blocking and unblocking the path to his intestines.
The only option was to head into theater and remove the toy.
As you can see from the picture below, all that remained of the dinosaur toy was a half eaten torso! Thankfully having chewed the arms, legs and tail off, they had all managed to pass through via his poo!
Shadow is now feeling much better! He is bright, happy and keen to eat regular food again! He recently visited us for his post operation check and his parents have done a fantastic job in keeping this wiggly boy quiet during his recovery. His surgical wound has healed perfectly and he is now allowed to eat what he wants (provided there are no more toys in the mix!).
In the veterinary industry we see all kinds of things that dogs and cats eat, from socks to toys, even tampons and razor blades!
It isn’t an easy job being a pet owner. They keep us on our toes 24/7 and require us to be vigilant and careful with where we put things. This gets even harder when you add kids to the mix as you then have to train them too!
For more stories like Shadow’s and further advice about what to watch for have a read of Dr Kunal’s blog by clicking here.
