What’s a dog to think? Grab it and run!

In a nutshell: fat, grease, bones, spices, peritonitis, sepsis, vet bills, stress. If that’s all you need to know, read no further. If you want to know the “why”, read on!

Nice……uh….hair !

When any holiday rolls around we are advised to disallow our pets from eating certain foods. You are probably familiar with the year ’round list: avocados, bread dough, chocolate, alcohol, grapes & raisins, anything moldy, artificial sweeteners, onions, garlic, hops, bones, and nuts, just to name a few.  Naturally, a high quality food made specifically for dogs should yield the results we have come to expect: a healthy coat, bright eyes, strong teeth and bones, good weight management, and vitality. Of course, we expect the same for ourselves when we eat “human” food…in this case; you can trade your healthy coat for a nice head of hair!

Certainly, you do not eat dog food for a variety of reasons, none the least of which is because it does not provide proper nutrition for a human. Likewise, dogs do not receive the nutrition they deserve to lead hale and fit lives from consuming human foods. All foods ingested by our dogs have consequences or benefits.

That being said, let’s cut to the chase and Talk Turkey!

What’s wrong with turkey? In the Dog World – nothing – what dog can resist the intoxicating smell of cooking turkey and all the trimmings? What pet parent can resist those pitiful eyes? There’s so much fat in dark meat and skin you might as well just pull up your carpet now. Turkey bones alone are already splinter-like and will perforate your dog’s intestines before you can blink an eye. Your pet may not show symptoms until sepsis (blood poisoning) has set in days later. Dogs don’t eat this rich food year ’round and it’s a shock to their digestive systems.

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

MASTERS AT BEGGING
Placing of the Head on the Corner of the Table; Pleading Eye Stare, The Sorrowful Whimper, – oh, yes, they’re very good at this. They are especially successful using their prayerful techniques with guests and kids, too. Resist you must.

There is no try. DO NOT.

Unaware of your House Rules, guests and kids have a tendency to think that when the holidays arrive, rules are suspended and EVERYONE should be allowed to “celebrate”. However, pets may not celebrate as much as regurgitate! If your holiday visitors are permitted to give little bits and pieces to your pets it all adds up to a whole lot of intestinal misery for your pets.

Holiday visits to the veterinarian’s office are significantly higher now than other times during the year and so are the costs associated with those visits. The choice is easy: either prepare yourself for some hefty vet bills or educate yourself, your family members, and your guests.

What are some common results from giving your pets access to holiday-rich  foods?
• Lethargy, listlessness, (no more get-up-and-go);
• Vomiting and/or gagging (either frothy saliva (white bubbly substance) or throwing up undigested (whole) food;
• Not eating; not drinking water;
• Blue, White, Purple/Gray, Red gums (if your dog has black gums – gently pull down on the lower eyelid – the colors above apply); What you want is a nice “pink” color.
• Rapid to shallow breathing or slow, labored (difficulty) breathing;
• Diarrhea;
• Blood from rectum;
• Dehydration; (slowly lift the skin at the scruff of the neck – if it doesn’t immediately return to the original position but very slowly drops to the body – the pet is dehydrated);
• Fever;
• Frequent or infrequent urination.

You do NOT want your pet at the vet’ s office during the holidays!

Vomiting and diarrhea issues at the vet, without pet insurance, can get to about $450.00 bucks in a hurry! If you have to go to the vet, he (or she) will ask if you noticed any of the aforementioned symptoms. Watch your dog carefully!

It’s pretty safe to say that if you can’t remember any of the above but your dog is not “acting like he/she normally does” – there’s ALWAYS a reason.

Imagine a bone stuck anywhere in this body. Or imagine it poking a hole in the stomach or intestines.

Why are these symptoms occurring?
In general, it’s because the diet to which your dog is accustomed has been totally disrupted. Some humans are lactose intolerant and get horrible gas; some are allergic to nuts and suffer anaphylactic shock; some foods cause humans to erupt in hives; it’s the same with your dog – only much more serious because they can’t TELL you what is wrong. Your animals depend upon you to “read” their symptoms and take immediate action to prevent illness or even death. The best prevention is to completely avoid foods uncommon to their daily diet. Why complicate your head with a list of what a dog can or cannot eat? Basically, there should be NO holiday food served to your pets.

How does this happen?
If your dog is given “treats” too rich in fat (butter, cheese, bone marrow, salt and spices, skin, and gravies), the pancreas (an organ near the stomach that helps digest food and control blood sugar) is irritated. Once that happens it then becomes pancreatitis, a condition that comes on suddenly or stays for long periods.  Now you have a crabby, irritated, struggling pancreas.  The intestines are nearly the last leg of the journey for food and are responsible for breaking food down into energy and into nutrients small enough to be absorbed and used by the body. If a foreign object manages to get by all other organs, undissolved, and it cannot travel through the intestines, you can be sure nothing is going to get around it. Ouch.

The digestive system in a dog or a cat includes the mouth, teeth, salivary glands, esophagus, stomach, intestine, pancreas, liver and gall bladder. The digestive system absorbs and digests food and eliminates solid wastes from the body.  These are all places where food should begin its disintegration and, if it’s not the RIGHT food, it’s gonna get stuck, HURT, and cause a lot of damage on the way to the “exit sign”.

Each organ in an animal, just like humans, has a function. Each organ reacts differently to the composition of ordinary foods. Symptoms range from the aforementioned vomiting and diarrhea to tremors and seizures, to intestinal ruptures to kidney failure to hypoglycemia, internal bleeding and/or liver failure. YIKES!!!  Pets don’t process foods the way humans do. Period.

DEM BONES

Dry, brittle and DEADLY

This is probably the most important section. You may argue that bones are okay for wolves and coyotes but your DOG is neither a wolf nor a coyote. Yes, coyotes and wolves DO die from most of the same ailments/conditions that affect domestic dogs in that their digestive systems react the same way when ingesting objects. The difference is wild animals have no one to feed them a proper diet or take them to the vet to save their lives.

All cooked bones act similarly; they turn into sharp deadly splinters, dissolve, or become caught in the esophagus, stomach, or intestines. And NOW we’re talking Major Medical Bills.  Bear in mind, this includes ham bones AND beef roast bones.  Some dog systems also cannot tolerate the extra-rich marrow in raw bones, especially if they have or have had pancreatitis.

Typical consequences pets suffer:

1. A bone gets stuck in windpipe: If your dog accidentally inhales a small enough piece of bone he or she may have trouble breathing.
2. Bones pieces and bone splinters: These will cause a blockage poke holes in the intestines and other vital organs, leading to peritonitis – which is a horrible, difficult-to-treat bacterial infection of the abdomen caused when bone fragments stab your dog’s stomach or intestines.
   1. Peritonitis can kill your dog. If you think that’s expensive, just wait until your dog (or cat) has to have damaged intestine pieces cut out and sewn back together (resectioning).
3. A bone gets stuck in stomach: It went down okay, but may be too big to pass out of the stomach and into the intestines.
   1. Depending on the bone’s size, your dog may need surgery or upper gastrointestinal endoscopy — a procedure in which your vet uses a long tube with a built-in camera and grabbing tools — to try to remove the bone from the stomach. Think:  Megabucks.
4. Constipation due to bone fragments: Your dog may have a hard time passing the bone fragments because they’re very sharp and scrape the inside of the large intestine or rectum as they move along and may cause severe bleeding from the rectum.
5. Broken teeth and mouth or tongue injuries; or a bone gets looped around your dog’s lower jaw.

All these require a trip to the vet’s office and an incredibly painful experience for your pets.

Please don’t try to medicate or “solve” the problems yourself. After this reading, take a moment to jot down the phone numbers of TWO different vets and an Emergency (24/hour) Vet and place it on your refrigerator so you are ready to fly out the door with your pet should anything accidental occur.  Take a course in Pet First Aid at your local Red Cross before you attempt any do-it-yourself remedies, please.

Homemade Peanut Butter Dog Biscuits. Whip some up before the festivities begin!

Hot Tip! Prepare some appropriate dog treats in advance for each guest to give to your pets if they just can’t resist that Happy Dog Smile. You could have your own handmade or store bought dog nibbles in little containers next to each guest’s plate. The dogs won’t know that they are not getting turkey and all the fixin’s !

Itty, Bitty, Teensy, Tiny Microchip…a Lifesaver!

Side note: Since the comings and goings of guests are an open invitation for pets to escape, make sure they are collared, tagged and, of course, microchipped! There’s much more on that at www.chippit.org.

With proper planning your pet should be Safe during this upcoming holiday.  Have a lovely and Happy Holiday Season!

Sharing makes me feel Good!