Warning

[faitaccompli]

My dog (she is a year old) is currently spending the weekend at the vets. She went to her doggy day carer yesterday, where she has the most fabulous time with the carer's other dogs - been going there for several months 2-3 days a week. She was given a bone - one from a pet shop - I think the marrow bone type with yummy stuff in the middle of the bone.

I collected my dog last night and she was fine. This morning, we took her out for a poo and a wee at 5.30am and she cried and yelped when she had a poo. She was panting, depressed and would not eat or drink. When I let her off her lead, she just sat there and panted. She would normally be off like a bullet. I would usually leave it for 4-5 hours and see what happened, but she was so miserable, I called the vet when they opened at 8.30am and took her straight in.

She was taken to have xrays, and they immediately found that she had slivers of something white and bonelike in her tummy.

She has been given morphine and is on a drip, and is much more comfortable than she was this morning, but I am staggered that pet shops sell something that can cause such damage. She is not a chewer, for example, she has had the same favourite toy since she was 12 weeks old.

I am very much along the lines of not giving dogs any sort of bones as I always worry about this sort of thing happening. And the dog carer was only treating her the way she treats her other dogs - there is no issue with her having done anything wrong at all.

Yet, my poor dog is spending the weekend in the vets, may need an operation to sort it out, and I will be having a bill which (by the time they have xrayed every 3-4 hours for the next two days) will be in excess of £1k.

So - back to the heading. Warning. Don't give your dogs anything that can splinter and cause them such discomfort and danger.

I am now a much wiser dog owner who will make it clear to anyone looking after my dog that they do not get bones or anything that is likely to cause this sort of problem.

Vet just called to say that she is staying in the vets until Monday night. Poor puppy :(

Was it a cooked bone, or a chewdle bone?

I am afraid I don't know - my dog carer sent me a picture of one of the bones - it is white and hollow with (I believe) a paste in the middle of the bone.

It looks like this (not from the US or filled with peanut butter though!)
www.amazon.com/Supplies-Large-Filled-Sweet-Potato/dp/B006HO81UE/ref=pd_sim_petsupplies_5/182-9177058-0330867?ie=UTF8&refRID=11JE36YGTDDTPBM2K0JA

that bone looks cooked, which is a big no-no.

I really hope your dog makes a speedy recovery.

Thank you. I have my fingers crossed. It is one of the reasons I never feed her bones, having read of the possible dangers. But surely the pet shop should not sell something that could cause this damage?

It's a tough one. My dog has those, I won't buy cheap ones though. The Bob Martin ones have caused nonendbof problems and are still on the market

She doesn't have actually cooked bones, or raw hide because of the risk if blockages.

Mostly she has raw bones though. No problems there

(She's raw fed)

*No end of

OP - if you can find out where the bone was bought it'd be a good idea to let the shop know what happened. Perhaps they'll stop selling the bones and prevent another poor dog suffering in the same way as yours.
People tend to assume that cooked bones like this one in PAH must be safe if they're sold in a pet shop.
Note useless warning that "natural" bones may splinter. Warning should have said that cooked bones may splinter and it won't help if you watch dog eating because the dog can be injured hours after ingestion.
Raw bones, ideally with a good covering of meat as part of a raw diet, are fine.

Hopefully the dog carer won't be giving these bones out to the dogs in her care again. Hope you ddog is ok.

I collected my dog from the vet on Monday - she came out like a tiger - she was very pleased to be coming home! Cost me over £500 (no op thank goodness). She was a little quiet later in the evening, and still was not 100%, but today she is totally back to her normal, bouncy self.

Thank you for all your good wishes :)

So glad to hear she's ok :)

Glad she is ok faitaccompli! I am quite shocked as I buy those sort of bones from Waitrose. Sometimes I have noticed the ends have been gnawed away but I didn't realize they could splinter.

Does anyone know what the 'rules' are for dog bones? Is it strictly raw bones? Where do you buy them from?

Hope dear doggy feeling better. Thank goodness I have mn-just got both types of bone for our 8mth old pup I thought they were safe as got personal advice on picking them from local farm shop. Will go straight in bin

Poor dog and poor you. I find it hard to keep up with what's OK and what's not this week.

After a bad experience with a raw pigs trotter, our dog has stag bars. They're made from reindeer antlers when they drop, they don't splinter and are incredibly hard wearing - ours has had his for six months and is not even halfway through it. I tend to find pet shops in markets do them - we've had them for a couple of years now and he never manages to chew off big enough bits to do himself any harm.