YT's can learn from Oprah's loss
 

Most of us have all heard about the sad death of one of Oprah's dogs ....her dog Gracie choked on a "light up ball".
This is an article that Oprah wrote about Gracie's death:
http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/20070..._mission.jhtml

This was a "wake up call" for me....what items do I have around that could cause my furbaby to choke? Who better to ask than our YT friends? I think we all could learn from Oprah's loss. Please post items that could be dangerous or any experience you might of had with your baby choking. This is so scary!!! Hopefully, we can prevent others from going through what Oprah is going through.
(Note: I looked around to see if there was any other threads about dangerous choking items...I did not see any at the moment. Hopefully, I did not miss another thread about this)

For those of you in multi-species households:
Watch out for cat toys! They have little bells and cords on most of them. This is a real potential hazard for houses with puppies AND chewers!!!:eek:

Ozzie tries to play with some of Toby the Cat's toys sometimes. Luckily, he never tries to destroy them the way he does his own. I try to keep vigil when Toby is playing with these toys just in case they break or the little springy cords come lose so I can quickly scoop them up so that NEITHER pet gets into trouble.

I did not know she lost Gracie. I love Oprah and I know how much she loves
her dogs. I remember the episode when she went to the breeder and
bought all three. My heart is heavy for her.

I have posted several times about my grandmothers dog. He has had to have 2 surgeries now due to eating things he shouldn't have.

Choking is not the ONLY thing to watch for. Charlie had eaten pieces of paper, cloth, dental floss, the back of earrings, and so on. He could not pass any of them and had to have surgery to remove the mass lodged in his stomach. He started to act a little funny. She laying around and not being quite as active. He also wasn't eating anything. So the next morning she took him to the vet. The vet said that had she waited any longer he would have died.

So even if they swallow something small it doesn't always mean they can pass it.

OMG how very sad for all of these little dogs.
I'm going to check my house out better.

That story made me cry. I too remember the episode where she started working with a trainer.

I got worried too, so I posted a thread about how to tell what size of ball is safe, and it got some good responses...plus some funny ones! LOL

http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87040

my puppy lacey
 

as i took her heart worm pill out of the wrapper she was righ there and snatched it out of my fingers. she inhaled the whole thing and it got stuck in her throat, she couldnt breath at all and started to wobble and fall to the ground. i couldnt get it out i tried to do something close to doggie heimlich
( dont know how to spell that one for sure) and that wasnt working. hubby tried to reach it out of her mouth and could feel it but not get it outbut that did help her to at least try to cough. by that time foam was comming out of her nose i took her and ran to my neighbors who works at the vet and she couldnt get it out eather, by the time we caled the vet (after hours of course grrr) and got to the vets office it had gone down he did an ex ray to make sure and she had a bit of fluid in her lungs but was going to be ok. needless to say now she stays in her pack and paly while i get the pill out and crush it.

plus
 

all this happened after a baby i was watching died at my house from strept and pulminary adema in sept. so now i freak out at everything again. dont know how much more stress i cant take this year :(

I know someone posted awhile back about treats too! Sometimes, they are either sticky or whatever and get stuck in the mouth/throat....that thread wasn't too long ago. They can choke on eating their food to fast too....
I think there are many things that "can" happen to cause them to choke.

I seen this about Oprah on ET or one of those shows....very sad!!!

Judy....great posting!! I had not seen your thread. Everyone needs to measure their balls!!!! :sidesplt:

OMG....you poor thing!!!!!! I cannot imagine how you must of felt about the baby. That is so sad!!! Then your furbaby gives you such a scare.
I hope things are going much better for you!!!
Lots of hugs & prayers coming your way!!!

I feel bad for Oprah and I feel we can all learn from her loss. However, does anyone else get the feeling her dog may not have died if she herself had been walking Gracie? I noticed a lot of celeb bashing lately, but O is seem imune to it. I just got odd feelings reading how choked up she is about the loss, just mere minutes before Gracie's death O could not be bothered to walk her. :rolleyes: Maybe it's just me. All I'm saying is I think this may not have happened if O had walked them herself...

I felt like such a bad mom after this happened... a few months ago some friends came over to my house and these guys were all eating corndogs. They had never seen Layla before and they thought it was hilarious that she was jumping at them and their food. They were all laughing and I was doing other things and not really paying attention until one guy was like "Oops she got it!" I looked back and saw Layla looking at me with her tail wagging and the end of a chunk of wrapped hot dog in her mouth. I tried to grab her to take it out of her mouth but she wanted it bad so she ran. When I caught her, she swallowed it... WHOLE. She started wheezing and trembling and trying to bring it back up. I took her to her pee pad to try to get her to throw up on it. One of the guys came over with me and everyone was silent and we were rubbing her back and her stomach and tears started rolling down my face... it was about a minute that seemed like 10, and I was about to call an emergency vet when it finally came... about an inch and a half of hot dog covered in white goo. The bun part of it stayed down I guess. It was the scariest thing ever for me, but Layla was running around and happy as soon as it was over!

You have to be careful of stuffed animals with button eyes on them. Myy dogs have this puppy stuffed animal they play with and the other day I notced it was mssing both of its eyes. Luckily they didnt choke on them and they must have passed them.

Choking hazards:

-money(coins falling out of pockets ect)
-pen caps
-pee pad(We believe Hallee choked on her pee pad that caused us the big scare and rush to the vet because a ball of it came out in her poo, she shredded it and ate some of it)

-clear plastic part of price tags(We have fished this out of Gracie's throat several times. We now cut the tag over the toilet and flush the platstic thing down to be sure it does not fall out of the trash ect.)

-parts of toys that are pulled off(never buy toys with the hard eyes and we alway tugg and pull on the toys in the store to be sure the will be durable)

That is all I can think of right now.

One more thing, anything they get a new toy we cut the tag off first. THey like to chew these things off and we are afraid they are going to choke on them. All things around Hallee and Gracie are tagless.

tennis ball fuzz
 

edgar likes to rip the fuzz off of tennis balls and he doesn't normally spit it out.
then he'll start to make the gag noise. he hasn't ever seriously choked on it, but i'm sure if he got down to business and we weren't home he might.

also, some chew toys that are supposed to be tough and he can get chunks off of he's "given back" to the carpet. i know these can be stuck in their stomachs and cause major problems.

we don't keep tennis balls in the house anymore and i keep a hard eye on any new toy i get him.

Oh my! This is so sad! :( We've been lucky with Daisy as I always ''hand'' sweep the floor, corners, all the places she can get to for bits and pieces of dustballs, grass/dirt tracked in by my wonderful hubby:mad: , and all sorts of little things. My hubby thinks I'm nuts/obsessive because he has this strange idea that whatever she eats, she'll poop out. (He had a big rottweiler before he passed and we got Daisy)

Basically, he's used to bigger dogs and I endlessly constantly remind him that she's much smaller and CAN choke on something or won't pass something. ARRGH!! He does'nt seem to understand the severity of ripping the ''plastic tags from new stuff'' over the trash can, incstead he likes to carelessely rip it and usually I end up on the floor searching for the little hazardous tag thing.

Surprisingly the closest call we've ahd was when Daisy somehow managed to rip a whisker of one of the ''Hide-A-Squirrel'' squirrel and had apparently swallowed it. I had no idea since I was either in another room or on YT (hehe). I go into the living room only to find she had vomited all over my lovely couch! :eek: :eek: Because I'm ''obsessive'', I looked through her puke and found a ''whisker''!!! :eek: You bet I went and cut all the other whiskers off! Thank god she vomited it up and it didn't get stuck in her system. I mean it was pretty long, like dental floss.

For all you folks who have the ''Hide-A-Squirrel" toy, please do yourself a favor and cut the whiskers off the squirrels! :thumbup:

Oprahs story was written beautifully. It made me cry.........

So sad about her loss of Gracie... I know the feeling

My advice....NO GREENIES...EVER!!!!!!!!!!

It killed my 10 1/2 mo. old Lhasa Apso. Bowel blockage and ruptured intestines. All due to Greenies. You'd die how it looked on the xray/catscan, which ever it was.

:eek: I just got that toy for Phoebe she don't really care for that much, so I put her favor toys inside and she like it better, thankyou so much pinky :D I will do that, so funny how I was thinking of that when I got it:rolleyes: all the toys that I got for Phoebe I make sure that nothing like piece of the material don't come out, I'm going to ck the squirrels right now:thumbup:

very sad ...
 

thank you for sharing this powerful message and story.

Great Posts!!
 

Yes, A good lesson for us all......... also very sad to hear of some YT'ers awful experiences.
Shelby & Seymour are like little "Roomba's" when it comes to things on the floor. They will try to pick up ANYTHING. Gotta watch these little guys like a hawk!
I never buy anything with buttons ......... all "eyes" are sew on the toys. Also be careful with toys that have ribbons on them! :eek:

watch out for larger dogs and tennis balls
 

I will try to get through this without to many misspell words through my tears.

Ichabob was 7yrs old and a diabetic for 3 yrs, I had fed innova and best in show since he was a pup. we also have my son black lab now (my son is in the marines) and my husband found a lad mix two years ago drowning in a river he bought him home and after putting up with mille the (lab) Ichabob and I said hell no we are not keeping him. well he became ELNO (for hell no)
my oldest daughter has a chocolate lab and y youngest daughter has a mix lad and a 1yr old great dane.
ok here we go
we live on 80 acreas with a live stream every few days the kids have what they call puppy play day here, and all the big dogs come and swim and play ball. for the day.. Ichabob (yorkie) was not allow to play with the big dogs because I felt like they were way toooooo big, but he love to bark at them when we would sling hot the tennis balls for them to run and bring back..
there always a rule that all tennis balls were accounted for at the end of the day the ones that got broken or ate would be trash..
one sunday after all the balls were accounted for or so I thought everybody went home.. Ichabob became sick on wednesday night throwing up a little,
by thursday morning he was no better so I took him to vets thinking it was just upset stomach that happen with dibetic dogs, he was still throwing up when I arrive at the vets and while there he threw up a piece of a tennis balla rather large piece to my shock . he seem better after that, but to be on the safe side they did xrays and found two more smaller pieces in his stomach
this vet opp to wait and see if he would throw up the last 2 pieces on his own before surgery, Ichabob was not a small yorkie he weigh in at 15lbs
I joke with my husband that Ichabob was a person trap in a dog suit.. he was my heat and soul. also this vet was new to me because we had just move to ms last sept. and this was march of this year. I question the vet decision to wait but he felt like with ich being a dibetic and a yorkie that surgey would be too much. ich had surgey on friday but by that time the tennis pieces had made there way into his instines it was bad. he made it thorugh the surgery put died during the night. the worst part was that the vet call us at midnight and said he was doingood that I could come see him first in the morning, when my husband and I walk in the vets the next morning thinking we were going to see him, we were told he had died early that morning, the vet stay with him through it all till the end. then I had guilt
that if I had drove the 140 miles to his old vet that outcome would have been different that they wouldn't have waited and he wouldn't suffer as long as he did.. I made a promise to Ich that after he became a ditetic that I wouldn't let him suffer becaue I couldn't let him go.. the last time I held him he was soo sick he didn't even want to look at me. in the end he suffer anyway.. life is so short don't take these little guys for granted. I did call my old vet had the xrays sent over he said he would waited too or they might of scope him instead of surgery..
the lord works mysterious way Ichabob was our only inside dog I didn't want another inside dog because had been the only one for 7yrs, three weeks till the day ich died my husband bought home a 2yr old jack russell terrier that we had first told me about last dec. that it needed a home and they wanted him to take her. of course I said no way, it would hurt ichabob feelings being the only child for so long. the subject was drop, until march 17 out of the blue the family calls back and pleds with us to take her they had pray and this was where she was to go. I gave in and said ok March 31 Ichabob dies.
she has help through the lost of our child dog for weeks I would hug her
pretending she was Ich and cry through her fur. Ichabob went to my niece wedding, to my son college graduation, to big bend tx for a death . he went everywhere we went if he couldn't go we didn't go.. I can't beieve losing a human child could hurt anymore then this has. I hope I never have to find out.
penny

I am sooooo sorry that this happened to you. I can only imagine how much you miss Ichabob. I pray that your heart is healing!!!

Safety pins and straight pins. We have had this happen twice now. And believe me I am overly protective. It scares me how she can get into things.

I have caught Jake chewing on a number of little things that he picked up off the floor because someone dropped them. So, I watch very closely and vacuum every single day, sometimes twice a day. People think I'm crazy for vacuuming so much when Jake doesn't shed. But, he will put anything in his mouth, so I have to be really careful.

Also, check the chair and couch cushions for change that might fall out of someone's pocket.

Nylabones
 

Add Nylabones to this list! We tend to think many toys and treats are safe because they are sold in stores. We just went through an ugly battle with my dog swallowing a piece of a plastic nylabone.

Other dog treats/toys to watch for:

Rawhides
Greenies
(a gentle reminder to those that have heard it before;) )

Also, watch some of the plastic toys or the ones that have plastic bits on them. Watch the stuffed ones also because they can get little holes in them and eat the stuffing.