Dog Chew Warning

[Isabelle]

My Isabelle, an aggressive chewer, is in the hospital after getting a piece of a cow trachea lodged in her esophagus. After a day of looking for something related to her diabetes to explain her lethargy, depressed behavior and refusal to each anything, the emergency vet decided to do a chest x-ray after blood tests and an abdominal ultrasound showed no abnormalities. The x-ray showed something in her esophagus and the piece of beef trachea was removed through an endoscope. However, there was damage to her esophagus tissue and Izzy will be in the hospital for a week fed through a tube through her nose so that her esophagus has time to heal. The beef trachea is supposed to soften as it moves through the dogs system and Izzy always chewed under my supervision. She seem fine when we went to bed but woke up the next morning lethargic and not eating. I have thrown away the rest of her beef trachea and bully sticks and am feeling very guilty.

[jesse girl]

Re: Dog Chew Warning

oh my glad you found the problem

dont feel guilty its something izzy enjoyed and had no problem with it in the past . sometimes we just have bad luck and it may have been anything

hope izzy gets well soon

[Judi]

Re: Dog Chew Warning

aw, so glad you caught it! try not to beat yourself up too much. We just aren't perfect. I know a lot of people buy antlers for their dogs to chew. I've seen them at our local pet store.

hope she comes home soon. she knows you love her

My niece's dog needed expensive surgery from eating one of the kid's tube socks. Dogs are dogs.

Judi

[Isabelle]

Re: Dog Chew Warning

Thank you for the encouragement. I went to see her in the hospital. She wagged her tail and was thrilled to see us. Her esophagus was badly damaged and time will tell if it will heal. She will be in the hospital through the weekend being fed through a tube through her nose to give her esophagus a chance to heal. They are monitoring her blood glucose continually as well. She will need follow up endoscopes and procedures but it looks good in the log run.

Thank goodness we have pet health insurance so we can focus on getting Isabelle better.

[Isabelle]

Re: Dog Chew Warning

Izzy's esophagus has healed much better than expected but now the vets are trying to get her blood glucose stabilized on long lasting insulin. The hospital staff has been regularly checking her levels and treating swings with short acting insulin. I am so grateful - and have thrown out all of the dried beef trachea we had in the house.

[jesse girl]

Re: Dog Chew Warning

thats great news . blood sugar maybe a bit erratic for a bit but that is to be expected things may settle when izzy gets back home

hope to see continued progress