Last night was scary – we had the closest call with the dogs ever: Corduroy ate her muffin too fast and began choking on it.
Our dogs all have tracheal problems and occasionally their throats temporarily collapse. It freaks them out, but by massaging the sides of their throats gently, they come through it in a few minutes. At first, this is what Thomas and I thought it was. It definitely wasn’t. We began to notice her panicking more than usual and making sounds like she was trying to vomit something up, but nothing would happen.
Then we started to get really worried and I’ll be honest, we began to panic ourselves a little which I am sure didn’t make the whole situation any better.
I had just been explaining to Jane as to what to do if Sonnet ever began choking so fortunitely, I knew immediately what to do. I picked her up, turned her upside down and tried to shake the object out. She got squirmy and I couldn’t do it so Thomas took charge and did it – he said the key was to hold her head.
Thomas saved her life. I am sure of it.
He shook her twice and it dislodged the muffin from her throat and she was able to vomit it up. Thank goodness. She didn’t chew her food and it got stuck.
I wrote an article a few years ago when Corduroy choked on a treat so you can read it here. Another good article is here and I will paraphrase one important bit for how to help dislodge an obstruction from a small and a big dog.
Help your dog to dislodge the obstruction.
Small to medium size dog – Pick up a small or medium dog by his/her hind legs. Hold the dog upside down and try to shake the object out of his/her mouth with the benefit of gravity.
Large dog – Hold the dog upside down but instead of holding the whole dog upside down (next to impossible!), keep his/her front paws still on ground or a bench and lift up his hind legs (in the same manner as holding a wheelbarrow) and tilt him forward.
This is also a good reminder to make sure to supervise your dogs while they eat food and treats. You can also use dog puzzles and treat balls to slow them down and discourage them from gulping. We know now to make sure to break out dogs’ muffins up into even smaller bits so this doesn’t happen again.
Corduroy was fine after the incident – she just moved on like nothing happened. And she wanted the rest of her muffin that she didn’t get to yet (I made sure to feed it to her in very small crumby bits).
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Liz Bradley is a dog lover who lives in Ottawa, Ontario with her husband,