10 Odd Things Swallowed, with X-ray Evidence

Dogs seem to take on the role of roving garbage disposal.

Not nearly as compelling as some of these stories, my German Shepherd Dog ate one of my Mach 5 razors one morning. I found two piles of plastic and steel. The steel was about 6 feet away and counting 5 steel strips brought a moments relief until I closely examined each strip.

It turns out that the strips are simply backing plates, not the blades themselves. Those are spot welded onto the strips. Out of the whole razor on 60% of the actual blades were missing! She didn't eat the plastic, the backing strips, only the blades.

A quick trip to the vet and a few X-Rays later revealed all the fragments, some 3/4" long. The vet told me to feed her mashed potatoes and something that would hurry the exit process along. Remarkably, everything passed without incident.

We have Weimaraners. One of them has a taste for fabric - must not be sufficient fiber in his diet. He eats socks, small towels, shoes, belts, and makes large holes in sheets, blankets, larger towels, jeans, pillows, the list goes on... It started as a puppy. The fellow we got him from told of how he swallowed a towel and had to have it surgically removed. There's no training or discipline that seems effective.

"There's no training or discipline that seems effective."

Poppycock. Two weeks with me and that dog would never do that again.

Yeah, and two weeks with you, and there's a lot of things YOU'D probably never do again, too! The others are all well-behaved. This one's genome must have some...

Sorry to say this, but you have one of those dogs. Actually, I don't mean to come down on you personally, but I bet there have been things you have done to reinforce the problem. Very few (almost zero) dogs are really a problem dog, but there are a number of dogs that have pack drives and prey drives that tend to be on the outside of the normal distribution curve.

I had a set of near disasters with my dog, which has a high pack/dominance drive, before I learned what I was doing wrong (which was about everything). She is turning out nicely now, but 99% of dog owners are pretty much clueless on how to raise and train dogs. Outfits like Petsmart, which are well intentioned, just reinforce this dilemma for owners and the results are pretty sobering. Just look at the number of dogs in shelters.

First, your dog doesn't know the meaning of NO and probably doesn't respect you as its leader. I'll bet when you see it chewing something it will not come to you when called or stop when commanded. I am sure that he/she got this from the last owners and now you have inherited their problem.

There are a number of fixes for this problem and the lack of respect. The actual course you take will depend on how hard headed your dog is.

I don't know the specifics of your home situation, so it is hard to lay out a course of corrections for you. If you really want to fix this problem I can give you some leads on how to deal with it. Just private email me.

Thanks, but he's a work in progress. He had an attenuated puppyhood, and seems to be making up for it now as a 3-year old. When scolded, he epitomizes the term "hang-dog look" - you couldn't ask for a sadder look! And he seems to regard both me and EnviroMrs as pack leaders. He just finds his own entertainments far too easily, and he is ALWAYS ready to eat something - anything. If I ever get my hands on his first human..., well, no, I won't, it wouldn't help, but I'd LIKE to!

Good luck!