Cob warning !

[Grumpynan]

My daughters a veterinary nurse, and again last night she had to put a beautiful much loved English setter to sleep.

why —— because she eat a corn on the cob kernel

she commented last summer, but I thought how sad, but now this summer and we have our beautiful puppy it’s made me more aware.

for some reason dogs love cobs, the butter ?, but they can’t digest corn, and if they get hold of the cob they swallow the whole thing, sometimes in one piece sometimes in chunks,

these pieces block their insides, but on X-ray they can’t be seen, the owner might not even be aware that a cob is the problem it can be a day or two before symptoms show.

because the kernel doesn’t show on X-ray the vet has no idea where the blockage is and this means major surgery, and often as last night a healthy animal being put to sleep

so now summer is supposed to be here and the bbqs are out, please please watch your dogs and make sure you can account for all your kernels.

in the same vain, don’t forget bones and skewers are sharp and can do awful damage if a dog gets old of them

Thanks for that reminder OP. Very timely and sad.

Ah what a shame and so unnecessary... Summer brings a whole range of potential disasters.. One summer our husky ate a flip flop and a wooden chip fork. Fortunately she seemed to suffer no ill effects...

The danger is especially acute when fodder maize has been harvested and whole cobs as well as ones where all of most of the corn has been removed from the central part. Dogs seem to love them.

A friend lost her dog after he ate sand on the beach where some utterly thoughtless moron had emptied the fat from a portable barbeque.

Is it the centre bit of the corn ie the cob bit, or the kernels, which are the individual sweetcorn bits?

my understanding was the actual sweetcorn pieces (kernels,) are fine, in moderation on their own. But you should never give a dog the corncob bit with or without the kernels. As they cannot digest the corncob.

just want to clarify, in case dogs should not have any part of sweetcorn/corn on the cob.

It’s the centre part, people discard them on a plate, eating in the garden pop the plate on the floor next to the chair, or on the picnic blanket, we’ve all done it, my dog would never (in theory but she’s only 7 months 🙄) take food from the table, but on the floor 🤷🏼‍♀️.

the centre part isn’t visible on an X-ray so you might know it’s inside the dog but where is anyone’s guess.

the actual yellow kernels that you eat is fine, but they can’t digest it so will just pass through, it offers them no goodness roughage maybe but that’s about it.

On a brighter, rather sick note, but might appeal to someone with a warped sense of humour like me

a few weeks ago a greyhound was taken in, he had swallowed the squeak in a toy, it had passed through but got stuck in his bottom, every time he tried to push it out it squeaked, poor thing was getting very worried.

all ended well, just involved a lot of Vaseline 😱😂

We bought some fresh kippers from a smoke house last week. The woman who served us told how her dd's ddog ate a box of firelighters and lived to tell the tale!! Was astounded!! Our year old pointy hound ate 5 mince pies one Christmas.. Cast iron gut that thing.

Thank you for clarifying.

your op was a touch confusing as you referred to both the kernel and the cob at different times as being the issue, so I just wanted to clarify. Thanks

I would also add, if I may, to watch out for the small spikey wooden sticks that come with certain take away food.

Near where I live I see these all the time, along with discarded corn cobs, where people have clearly had a picnic of some sort of take away and just thrown them in the grass.

I spent quite a lot of last summer picking up discarded corn cobs and these sticks in one of the fields where I walk my dog. I'm assuming they act as skewers as they seem to have bits of meat on them.

And of course, it's not just dogs that will eat them but wild animals as well.

Makes me so angry as both the corn cobs and sharp sticks will very likely kill any animal that eats them.