Shocking Diets & Dangerous Eating Habits That Could Literally Kill Your Dog
Once you see where your dog’s mouth has been ? or what’s been in it ? you may never want it kissing you again!
Feces are high on the list of disgusting things dogs love. Horse dung and cat feces are absolute favorites. Rather than butt your head against the wall trying to change your dog’s culinary tastes, it’s far easier to simply keep these delicacies out of reach from your pooch.
However, dog feces is another story; nobody knows what compels some dogs to eat their own (or other dogs’) poop. The best cure and prevention is diligent feces removal. Adding hot sauce to the feces may deter some dogs, but others just gobble it down and run for water. Commercially available food additives can make the feces taste bad ? or least worse ? and will dissuade some dogs.
In some cases the dogs appear to exhibit a compulsion to eat feces; these dogs may be helped with drugs used to treat obsessive-compulsive behavior in dogs. See your veterinarian behaviorist if you’re not sure why your dog eats feces.
Dogs also eat other non-food objects, such as fabrics and socks, sometimes causing obstructions that require surgical removal. Prevent this by diligently removing objects from the dog’s reach. You may also need to supplement it with drug therapy for obsessive-compulsive behavior and training that focuses on rewarding alternate behaviors.
Then there is clothing! More than one dog owner has paled as their dog dragged underpants into the room while company looks on. Without the owner’s interference, the dog would gladly chew them up. Socks are another favorite. They’re less embarrassing but potentially more dangerous.
Swallowing stockings and long socks can lead to intussusceptions, a potentially fatal condition which the intestines accordion upon themselves, requiring surgery. Again, prevention is the best means of control, so pick up your clothes!
What your pup decides to chew might not be just gross ? it can be dangerous. Chewing electrical cords can lead to shocks and electrocution. Eating drugs and poisons has led to the death of many dogs.
Although eating paper currency is an expensive habit, it ‘s not life threatening. However, swallowing a single penny can be much more expensive. Unless it is removed, the penny may stay in the stomach and release zinc, which results in zinc poisoning.
My local veterinarian was telling me a story just recently, about treating a Border Collie that gulped down a 3-inch metal anchor bolt. And 2 weeks prior she treated another dog that seemed to have lost its appetite and was loosing weight rapidly. It turns out the poor pooch had an abscess on its back, which turned out to be a 6-inch bamboo skewer that the dog must have eaten a month before. The skewer had migrated through he dog’s digestive tract and into its lumbar muscles, where it caused the abscess.