[yorkietalkjilly]

My little Jilly was chewing her rawhide chew with a knot at each end and chewed through the rawhide and tried to swallow the knot whole. It stuck in her throat and she could barely breathe, started going wildly in circles and finally fell over gasping so hard. Her chest was heaving! I grabbed her up and breathed some air into her nose, called the vet who was still in the office and started for his clinic at 9:55 pm in my gown and robe, driving with one hand and holding her and breathing some air into her nose as she could barely get any air past the huge knot that her throat was now swelling closed around. Eventually it did close off and she went limp in my arm. I almost died, was praying and still breathing for her, ran a red light and in 7 minutes or so we rolled up into the vet's parking lot, Still breathing for her and raced in, put her on his table and she perked up, even stood up. I fell back into the chair bawling. He examined her throat and she had finally swallowed it on down and it was in her stomach. He said the adrenaline she felt from my rushing her to the vet out into the cold night air and her struggle to breathe, her saliva and the surface of the rawhide softening and breaking down in her saliva back in her throat eventually worked its magic to allow her body to pass it. He laughed and said the praying hard didn't hurt either! He'd told me on the phone to try to press against it on down her throat when I first got hold of him but it only seemed to cut off her breathing even more and it stuck tighter but it was just to tight in there to pull out, which I'd already tried to do. She essentially died on the way to the vet when she went limp but getting the air to her allowed her to stay alive and somehow her heart kept beating! I was praying so hard out loud all the way there when I wasn't breathing for her I think she got all pumped up by my naked fear and excitement and struggling so to breath past that huge lump and that adrenaline helped her in that circumstance.

Needless to say, I took up all her chewies after that and only would let her chew on one end of a single skinny chew stick as I held the other end. It wasn't all that satisfying to her not to get it to herself but I wasn't about to go through the hell of a choking dog ever ever ever again. If you let your tiny dog chew these things, hold onto the other end while they chew it.