Quote:
Originally Posted by Lovetodream88  It's definitely scary, Joey had a choking issue when he was 10 weeks old and we had to go to the ER vet because he was shaking and coughing. They told me the worse thing to do when a dog is choking is reach into their throats because you can push it farther in. Lots of places now have dog cpr classes. Glad he is ok. |
No kidding about the pushing on things stuck in the throat. It was just after 10 p.m. when Jilly choked so I called the vet to see if anyone was there and the vet was, ready to leave after an emergency call. I told the vet the canine Heimlich wasn't working & he said my only recourse if she were losing too much air was to try to push the knot on down the throat! I was so desperate I tried it in desperation as she was fighting and gasping so, but it STUCK harder, cutting off almost all of her air!!! She stopped fighting and was growing limp with barely perceptible breath sounds as we tore out the front door to the car.
To this day, I'll never know how I got the front and car doors unlocked, opened, us into the car, started it, backed out and still held her upright, breathing for her and drove the 7 minutes to the vet without crashing while driving with one hand and holding her upright, her closed muzzle to my lips with the other, breathing for her and praying. I remember saying Jesus would help her over and over to her as calmly as I could between breaths as that's all I could think to do right then as inside I was panicked as much as I'd ever been in life. One of the worst nights of my life - or hers!
But thankfully, given the way the body was designed to work, her saliva enzymes slightly broke-down and slickened the rawhide knot and her adrenaline working on the pharyngeal swelling around it, her body did allow her to finally swallow it just before we drove into the vet parking lot and she was breathing on her own again. I changed vets after that episode.