My dog may or may not have swallowed a couple of chicken bones about an hour ago. She doesn’t seem to be in any discomfort, but our house is surrounded by workmen and so she is behaving kind of strangely anyway. She is responsive but much less excited than usual, but we just had a big weekend, so she is probably all tuckered out. In short, what can I do for her right now, and what should I watch for? I am very protective of her and I am freaking out just a bit.
Cooked or Raw?
Cooked, which is why I’m so concerned.
There is nothing to be done, so don’t do anything.
If she stops eating of seems to be in abdominal pain, take her to a vet.
She should survive just fine. Any pointed object, including a bone shard, **could ** injure the digestive tract, but that would be true from today until she dies of natural causes, or gets run over by a truck. Not worth fretting over.
Being that this is SDMB, I think the only advice I can give you is to call a vet and let them figure it out.
When this happened to my dog, we just kept an eye on her to make sure she was still eating, and that everything she was eating was coming out and that she wasn’t in any obvious pain. But IANAV, so my ‘official’ advice is to call a vet.
My understanding is that the major threat of chicken bones to a dog is choking. If she got them down she’s halfway through the crisis. I’ve had many dogs eat chicken bones (accidentally, like digging through the garbage when I’m not home) and none of them were much worse for wear.
Maybe Vetbridge will be along to clear things up!
The major threat with chicken bones is that the dog chews them up and they end up in lots of sharp pieces. Bird bones are hollow and are easy to crunch up. Some dogs can pass them with no problem, in other cases they could cause an obstruction or even pierce the intestines. The only thing you can do right now is feed the dog. Give it a meal of dry food or some bread so that there will be something else in the stomach to help the bones move on through.
Watch your dog carefully for any signs such as inappetance, acting painful in the abdomen (hunching up), vomiting, diarrhea or constipation. Watch for blood in the stool. Take you dog to the vet at the first unusual sign.
Do not under any circumstances induce vomiting. Chicken bones may be bad stuck in the intestines but they’re even worse if they get stuck in the esophagus since that runs right through the chest.
Same as what everyone says, watch and see. FWIW, my shar pei lives to dig in the garbage and get at chicken bones and he’s been successful many times over the years. Happily, he’s never been worse for the wear. Just keep an eye out for any signs of pain and keep an eye on his poop to make sure there’s nothing unusual there.
It might calm you a bit to learn that my stupid giant cat who will put anything into his mouth and try to eat it once threw up a two inch long sewing needle he found Og knows where–with absolutely no ill effect. Me now, I just about shit a brick worrying retroactively about what that could’ve done to him. If it’s a good sized dog, the chicken bones were the smaller ones (smaller than leg or thigh bones, say) and she didn’t get too many of them she should be okay–but I definitely echo the rest regarding observation and calling immediately if any odd symptoms crop up.
My sister’s lab ate a whole plate of chicken wings. Nothing happened. Given the nature of dogs they like to inhale their food so I wouldn’t worry about it.
Take this for what it’s worth: I ain’t a vet, but my mini schnauzer feasted on chicken carcass and was sick (as a dog) for the next 24-36 hrs. I took him to a 24/7 vet hospital “chain”, and I felt I was at a car dealership. They looked at my dog (without me present) and gave me a consult. “Well, for $500, we can give him the high treatment of X-rays, foo-foo, fizzbang, and wowzers”, like the options of a car wash, “…because we don’t know if he ate any bones.”
I said that’s insane! Just give me something to settle his digestive tract so I can follow-up with my regular vet. Any bones this little dog ate have either passed or been digested by now. The bill came dog dramatically, and the dog was fine. Maybe I took a gamble, but the dog was acting fine. And, I couldn’t imagine my dog eating something a bone big enough not to go to mush in stomach acid.
IMHO,
Jinx
THIS was exactly what I needed to hear. 
Thanks to everyone else as well. I’m glad I’m not the only one to accidentally let their dog do something stupid.
She seems to be doing fine, but I will breathe a sigh of relief when I see her finally poo. And of course if she does anything blatantly alarming, we’ll be at the vet in about 2 seconds.
I suspect the danger to dogs from eating chicken bones is highly exaggerated. Growing up, we had several dogs, and they all ate chicken bones ROUTINELY. None ever had any problems, and all lived to a ripe old age.
I am not denying that a dog COULD be injured by a chicken bone, but I think acting as if the dog had swallowed some type of poison is a little silly.
Yes, dogs are domesticated animals, but are they that different anatomically from wolves, coyotes, etc., who I’m sure would not pass up a meal of chicken bones?
Same here. Don’t worry too much bufftabby - my rhodesian ridgeback Griss eats chicken bones whenever he can…I’ve seen him engulf a turkey bone into his gullet in less than 5 seconds. And turkey bones are much larger.
BTW, what kind of dog is it?
I agree tht the danger from chicken bones is highly exaggerated. Thing is, your dog really could die from choking on a bone, or from getting a punctured digestive tract from a bone splinter. But how likely is that from eating one set of bones?
One more anecdote. One day I made some cereal, and left it in a large pyrex bowl on the counter. Our shepard/husky knocked the bowl off the counter and the bowl shattered, and the dog proceeded to eat the granola along with the glass shards. We came home and the kitchen was covered in bloody footprints. And we knew that this could be it. The vet said the only thing to do was give her some fiber to bulk up her digestive tract so we gave her some metamucil and waited.
And she was fine. But that’s not the end of the story. About 3 months later she starts coughing and coughing, and hacks up a 3 inch razor sharp glass shard. It had been in her stomach for months, I guess and she finally puked it up.
If my dog can survive eating a razor sharp glass bowl, a few chicken bones are nothing to worry about. I wouldn’t give a dog cooked chicken bones on purpose, but dogs did evolve to eat meat and bones and can have amazingly tough digestive systems.
Glad it helped–as they say, it’s an ill wind that blows no one any good!
Cooked and not cooked is the key differentiator that I’ve always heard. I don’t think there’s any danger from raw bones.
Miss Sassy is (we think) a Jack Russell mixed with something else, perhaps beagle. She’s a fairly small little lass.