Jack got into a big hunk of Mystery Meat. Questions....
To make a long story short:
Jack got away from my husband today and spent several minutes unattended with a large hunk of... I don't know. A pork shoulder? World's biggest turkey leg? Raw? Cooked? I don't really know. It was a big piece of meat with some bones that were about as big around as a man's thumb.
I have no idea how much, if any,he ate, nor do I know if there were other pieces of something else around that he ate first.
When I found him, he had the animal part in his mouth but didn't seem to be making too much headway eating it, so I'm hoping that his unfamiliarity with it meant he was not successful in eating too much; he's a fast eater of kibble but not a gulper of large treats and he likes to take his time and work off small pieces of things.
Anyway, all sorts of scary possibilities run through my head: rat poison, pancreatitis, a blockage, salmonella.
There is of course the possibility that someone put out poison (it was in a park), but honestly there is someone (not sure who) that occasionally leaves out stale bread, produce that is going off, and the like, I believe with the idea that they are helping the local wildlife. Since there were some raw potatoes and onion nearby, my guess is that someone set it out trying to be kind, but who knows?
I know a fatty meal can trigger pancreatitis. Does anyone know how long it would typically take for symptoms to appear? What about a blockage? How soon would it take something like a bone hunk to work its way to his intestines?
I considered inducing vomiting, but since I didn't know if he got any bones, I thought the risks of choking were much too high. So now comes days of watchful waiting and hoping he's ok.
Those darned Corgis and their love of food. There were several other dogs loose in the park and not a one of them found the stash except my little Hoover....
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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Maddie can eat ANYTHING and she's fine. Sometimes if Jack eats something that doesn't agree with him, he yacks it up but then wants to eat again right away. Silly things. They always think they are starving. His heartworm is due in a few days and that's a general wormer too. They've both eaten some nasty things in the woods a few times. Blech.
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Permalink Reply by Abbey & Anne on
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Saying a prayer that Jack will be ok!
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Permalink Reply by Linda on
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Glad to hear that Jack is doing ok. Corgis do think they are part goat. I have had my share of neighborhood cats leaving dead mice in the yard and hawks leaving parts of their kills in the yard, those blue jay feathers were everywhere. We don't even want to talk about when the raccoon gutted my 18 inch koi all over the lawn.
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Permalink Reply by Jane Christensen on
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Oh Linda...darn coon...I just had one in my live trap:( Good thing he was young and ran like crazy when I released him!
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Permalink Reply by Elisabeth Spector on
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I'm sure everything is probably fine with Jack, but I thought I'd tell of our recent experience with Betsy. We learned the hard way not to assume that everything is okay if there are no symptoms of a blockage after the first few days. Betsy is a typical food-obsessed corgi (will swallow stuff she thinks *might* be food before she even has a chance to chew it and before anyone can convince her to give it up). She's eaten dark chocolate (large quantity of 90% cacao, had to induce vomiting and take her to the vet), an entire stick of butter in the wrapper, chicken bones, and numerous other things. About 2 and a half months ago, my husband was making guacamole and an entire avocado slipped from his grip while he was cutting it. Betsy got it the minute it hit the floor and down it went with almost no chewing, pit and all. It was a small avocado, with a relatively small pit compared to some I've seen--perhaps 3/4" x 1". We watched her carefully for several days, and everything seemed fine. My husband thought he saw evidence of the pit in her stool, but didn't really confirm that. Fast forward about 6 weeks, and Betsy started throwing up bile before her breakfast and then stopped eating altogether a couple of days later. I always said that Betsy would have to be dying if she didn't have an appetite. We spent a full week getting her worked up at the vet and keeping her hydrated every couple of days with IV fluids; the vet finally decided it might be her gall bladder based on X-ray. She referred us to the Vet Specialist center in Houston to do a more definitive ultrasound, and that showed an obvious intestinal blockage. She did have gallstones, but the vet said those weren't the problem and didn't need to be removed in a surgery that is quite risky for dogs. We didn't know if the blockage was the avocado pit, the butter wrapper, an old chicken bone, or something else, but it turned out to be the pit. The blockage had not shown up on X-ray, and Betsy had no typical symptoms of blockage other than the throwing up/loss of appetite. She was pooping fine until she stopped eating, and had a nice soft, non-tender belly. She had full abdominal surgery within hours of the ultrasound and has recovered beautifully; we now have the $4000 avocado pit on display in a jar. :-) The vet said that the pit must have been sitting in her stomach for several weeks until it started moving down her intestinal tract, where the passage finally got too small and the pit plugged things up completely. After talking to the vet, we've come to the conclusion that if Betsy ever ingests something potentially problematic, we'll take her straight to the vet to induce vomiting/have her stomach evacuated. The cost and discomfort are tiny compared to an abdominal surgery, and dogs can swallow items that pass easily down their large gullets but are too large/dangerous to get all the way through the intestines.
Anyway, I don't know if our story helps you or anyone else, but best of luck with Jack. I agree that the fact that he isn't a gulper should be quite a reassurance (I wish Betsy weren't a gulper, sigh...).
Elisabeth
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Permalink Reply by Anna Morelli on
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How are things going with Jack? Fingers crossed.
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Jane....in NYS it's against the law to trap and move any wildlife because of rabies. But we did try (shhhh), he managed to get the cat food without getting trapped. Wildlife people were no help, I got told he was here first. Sorry, my house was built in 1936 and he's a yearling. We had to resort to going to Agway and getting coyote urine (I don't even want to know how they get that!) and putting vials of it around the yard to try to scare him away. Must have worked or he found a girlfriend cause he finally moved on.
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Elisabeth: thanks for the info and sorry you had to go through that! I know things can linger in the belly. We had a cuz dinosaur toy for the dogs and I realized Maddie was taking pieces off of it, so I threw it out. A month or two later, she vomited and there was a big hunk of the dinosaur tail, gone all squishy from being in her stomach so long. Yuck! We no longer do rubber toys that have any edges on them at all. Thankfully there was no blockage, but I was stunned at how long it sat in her stomach, doing nothing.
She is my gulper, but her nose is so poor she rarely gets to anything she should not have before Jack has a chance to get it first....
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I'm so happy to hear that Jack is doing okay! Also interesting to hear another story of an item lingering in the stomach, and very glad for Maddie that she threw it up. I wish our Fred were more adept than Betsy at grabbing things, since he is much more likely just to mouth or chew stuff before swallowing.
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Anna, Jack is fine so far. My primary concern honestly was pancreatitis; whatever it was had large amounts of fat on it, and my dogs don't normally get fatty scraps.
I am hopeful he'll be fine though because he had no major tummy upset after the incident. He does NOT have an iron stomach (unlike Maddie, who can eat anything) and chances are if he ate enough of it to cause a problem, he would have had a gastro issue within the day.
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Sounds promising :-)
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