Vet Anne Fawcett: The dangers of dogs chewing bones
DOGS love chewing bones, but there can be occasional unpleasant consequences. The owners of Max, a beautiful chocolate labrador with a huge appetite for life - and bones – found out the hard way.
Blacktown
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DOGS love chewing bones, but there can be occasional unpleasant consequences. The owners of Max, a beautiful chocolate labrador with a huge appetite for life - and bones – found out the hard way. A day after a particularly bony feast, Max wasn’t himself.
They came home to find Max moping. He left his entire breakfast untouched. When a labrador misses a meal, I pay attention. Max was also straining to go to the toilet, and came in to see me with what his owners could only describe as “a sore bum”.
When I performed an internal examination I established that Max was constipated. His stool contained sharp shards of bone. This made the process of going to the toilet an agonising and unsuccessful one. The offending shards of bone won’t going to come out without doing some serious damage.
I anaesthetised Max and x-rays which confirmed the site of the impaction (and the absence of any other foreign material or gut perforation). I then performed an enema. Not the most glamorous task (vets don’t wear ballgowns to work for a reason), but the source of the pain was removed in a controlled and gentle manner.
Max woke up from anaesthetic with a renewed spring in his step. He demolished a full bowl of food. His owners tell me he won’t be eating bones any time soon. We’re all relieved.
Dr Anne Fawcett is a lecturer in veterinary science at the University of Sydney and a veterinarian with Sydney Animal Hospitals Inner West. Read her blog www.smallanimaltalk.com
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