Of course I’d never really be inhumane to an animal, but I swear, my dog has driven me closer to homicidal rage than I ever dreamed I could get.
Long story short: Over a week a ago, my dog just stops eating. He refuses any and all food. We go to the vet. Physical exams, blood tests, and x-rays reveal nothing. The vet is stumped. . It’s been awhile since the dog has eaten, he’s lost nearly 10 lbs., and he’s dehydrated. The doctor suspects some sort of lower GI system blockage, and though he claims to not be a very big fan of exploratory surgery, we’re down to the wire. So the vet opens him up
Today (a week and 2 days later), the vet finishes the surgery and gives me a call. As he suspected, the lower intestine was blocked. What was this terrible foreign body that invaded my poor little pup’s tummy?
A sock.
A whole sock. A sock just like the countless others I have wrestled away from him over the past year. He knows he’s not supposed to get the socks. Yet he somehow eludes my best efforts to keep him from the laundry basket. And when he finally gets one all to himself, what does he do? He swallows it whole. The really crappy thing is when the vet gives me the news, my first reaction is not one of happiness, or even relief. It’s anger. I’m so pissed that I could choke that stupid dog. Of course I won’t, but if the dog had been with me at that moment, the temptation would extremely difficult to suppress. I’m sure I’ll calm down and even laugh about this in a few days, but right now I’m still pretty perturbed.
So where does this leave me? Here’s the breakdown:
Office visits, bloodwork, x-rays, IVs, and hospitalization: $615
Doggie surgery: $400
A dog that will live to terrorize the clothes hamper another day: Priceless.
My former housemate’s cat was rushed to the ER vet for emergency surgery – he’s swallowed three foam earplugs. Threw up two of them, but the third one puffed up like a sponge in his intestine. $1,400.
I also once met a dog who was on his way to the vet’s to get his stitches out. He had swallowed a rock.
Dogs are especially bad for that. They have a thought process, that goes: “Well, it’s in my mouth already, might as well eat it.”
no, they have dog insurance.
it exists.
I dont have it for my wienerhund, and now I think I might get it.
although I don’t think he could fit a whole sock in his mouth.
Health insurance for a dachshund is probably a good thing. They get all sorts of problems from being Far Too Long For Their Own Good. Like getting themselves tied in knots, and such.
Thurgood, my late dopey Golden Retriever did the same thing about 10 years ago. Except he ate- swallowed - a whole nerf football. The thing was about the size of a real football and took them ages to break up, remove and thoughtfully save in a stainless steel bowl for my inspection. I remember the bill was monstrous, but not as bad as yours. They just don’t come any dumber or sweeter than he was. Damn I miss him.
…I commiserate with you. My PBJ cannot resist the lure of dirty kleenex. No matter how many times I say , “No! Drop it!” no matter how many times I pull one of these doubly soggy morsels out of her mouth, no matter how many times I try to NOT let one get anywhere near her, she still eats them. Yes, they’re usually mine, but that’s still yucky.
I suggest getting some bitter apple spray, royally dousing a few socks with it and then leaving them around the house for your dog to happen upon. (Obviously, supervise him in case he can somehow tolerate the bitter apply – a taste most dogs HATE!)
I tried it with the toilet paper roll (PBJ loves her paper), but the wetness of the spay disintegrated the TP. It didn’t work for logistical reasons for me, but I’ve heard it really does work.
I’m just waiting to have to make one of these vet visits with Isaac, our half Golden half Yellow Lab. He’s a great dog, but he will eat just about anything.
He’s shredded a few of my socks, but as far as I know he hasn’t eaten any yet. Stupid DOG!
When I was working at the vet clinic, we had the Week of the Wienerdog. It was amazing. Wienerdogs, if you don’t know, are Chaos Magnets. Where the Wienerdog goes, weirdness follows. If you get more than two weinerdogs together you hit Critical Weinerdog Mass and you’ll get trouble.
One of our clients was making bread and she dropped a half a loaf worth of dough onto the floor. Her trusty weinerdog snarfed it up. Then, it its warm tummy, the dough started to rise. And rise. And rise.
The poor dog was miserable. When we took x-rays, the entire tummy was chock-full of bread dough. The stomach was in danger of rupturing. Before we could get him into surgery, the dough fell (lucky dog) and he heaved it up and out. All was well.
Also during the same week, one of our patient dogs was chasing his sib dog around the patio of their home. Round and round they raced. Until he tripped over a decorative wrought iron table. His paw went through the loopy foot of the table. Then it wouldn’t come back out. We wound up cutting the leg off. Off of the table of course. Then we had to cut the foot into three pieces before we could free the dog. (Again, it was the table’s foot.)
My dog liked to get into the laundry, too. Soon after we first got him, he must have been six months or so, I took him out for a walk one evening when we had company.
It was dark, I couldn’t quite see well, but it looked like he had a bit of a cling on that wouldn’t come off.
It kept getting a little bigger, and he kept rubbing his ass on the ground, but it didn’t seem to help. I braved it, stepped on it with my foot, and it stretched out about a foot.
I freaked!
I started thinking something was seriously wrong with my dog and his intestines were falling out (hey, he’s my first dog and I have an over active imagination). I picked him up and ran back to the house screaming for my dad.
Upon getting into the light and examining him more closely, we realized what it was. He’d eaten, AND PASSED THROUGH one of my mom’s stalking socks. Well, almost passed through…dad had to help him out the rest of the way.
Thurgood…
I hope your dog has a complete recovery and gets a part time gig.
My mini dachshund also belongs to the sock cult. He is a deacon of note in the dirty Kleenex munching faith, and an archbishop in attacking vintage paperbacks.
One vet suggested fluffy sheepskin doll toys. It does seem to help.
I once had a blue heeler that ate a boot jack. The wood splinters perforated his intestine and he ended up losing 2 feet of intestine. But he didn’t learn. He was next hospitalized with horrible, unrelenting barfing. After observing him for a day, the vet called and told me he’d barfed up the body parts of about 100 crickets. He finally became a more careful snacker after having to “pass” a hard plastic Cookie Monster.
But the funniest? Thing I’ve seen was on Animal Planet the other day–they pulled a C-cup bra out of a dog, whole.
I hope your dog recovers well. Keep the socks put away.
When Fatcat was a skinnykitten, we came home to find a similar mess. He had eaten an entire box of Kraft Dinner, uncooked (and without the cheese powdwer). He must’ve had a lot to drink too.
The noodles expanded in his tummy and he’d yacked gut-cooked noodles all over the house.
Speaking of cat-yak… Somebody seems to be sick. Gotta go pick up some meds.
A friend’s brother had a dog that swallowed something or other that had to be surgically removed.
Then he did it again.
Then he did it again.
I don’t know about you, but if I were faced with a third $800 surgery, I’d be thinking it’s time to reevaluate the dog’s importance in my life. I love my wonderful, beautiful dog dearly, but I also don’t have $2400 to throw around on taking golf balls and scissors (yes, really) out of her stomach.
I seem to recall hearing about a survey of pet owners that found that the “ouch point,” i.e., the average price at which one balks at surgery, seemed to float around $600. That seems low to me, but maybe not.
When he was a kid, my dad had a little half-breed dachshund (sp?) that was the most ornery, ill-behave beast my dad’s ever seen. It’d crawl under the bed clothes to nap, and when it’d wake up, instead of crawling back out, it would chew it’s way out. Once through an expensive down comforter. One Christmas, somebody gave the family a two-pound box of caramels, wrapped up and set under the tree. This miserable little mutt sniffed it out and ate the entire box. This was easily 1/10th of the dog’s entire body weight. The best part is that after it passed through his gut, it still had the consitancy of caramel. And it didn’t bother to stop in one place to take a dump, it wandered through the entire house, slowly extruding this gooey string of dog shit.
My dad claims that was the only time in his life he wasn’t sad when his dog died.
- a whole nerf football. The thing was about the size of a real football and took them ages to break up, remove and thoughtfully save in a stainless steel bowl for my inspection. I remember the bill was monstrous, but not as bad as yours. They just don’t come any dumber or sweeter than he was. Damn I miss him.