WARNING: NEVER, EVER feed cooked poultry bones to your dog!

[Summerthyme]

Yeah, no kidding!! Poor dog immediately tries to hide under the porch when he hears my car drive in! And honestly, I don't blame him! But he's been amazingly cooperative so far, despite the indignities we've been heaping on him!

Summerthyme

[LittleBear]

Yes hope the dog gets through this.
Sometimes the road to (dog) hell is paved with "good intentions". Which I really think is self importance and unwillingness to humble yourself and learn...Like the mom in your account....my father in law, despite being told not to feed my dogs at any time, decided i was 'mean' and gave the male a chicken bone when he was in my yard and i in the house. The dog just swallowed it, and started choking...the old man flipped and came running for me, good thing the dogs got a huge mouth and i literally weaned him, had him from 5 weeks old, because I had to get my huge hand completely in his mouth and fish the thing out of his throat with my fingers. Naturally he was also biting me a bit out of fear too.
The old man didn't learn a thing from this, but i never allowed him around the dogs unsupervised again. My fault in the first place, I guess.

[Summerthyme]

Yep, I hear you.

The good news is, we won this one! He finally managed to get himself cleaned out early this morning. I'm not sure who is more relieved- me, the owner, or the dog!

Summerthyme

[breezy]

Yep, I hear you.

The good news is, we won this one! He finally managed to get himself cleaned out early this morning. I'm not sure who is more relieved- me, the owner, or the dog!

Summerthyme

Good to hear. I suspect the happiest being you and definitely the dog.

[LittleFish]

Yeah, no kidding!! Poor dog immediately tries to hide under the porch when he hears my car drive in! And honestly, I don't blame him! But he's been amazingly cooperative so far, despite the indignities we've been heaping on him!

Summerthyme

Glad the dog is doing better now (per your later post). You are amazing, ST -- I don't know if I could do all that for one of my own two dogs who are almost like my own children let alone one belonging to someone else. I hope these folks appreciate you and give you lots of good Amish butter or pies or whatever it is you like best.

[Summerthyme]

LOL! LittleFish... these, er "skills" (not sure how much "skill" is involved in this sort of thing... it's more like rotorooter in a living thing... ok, yeah, I guess you'd better have at least a little bit of an idea of anatomy, etc, so you don't cause more damage) are the sort of thing that can literally mean life or death. And not just in animals... humans can develop the same sort of problem, either as the result of nerve injuries (spinal nerves control the function of the bowel and bladder, among other things), serious dehydration (very common and chronic in older people) or due to meds (opiates are very well known for causing severe constipation, which then can progress to an impaction if not treated promptly.

Understanding even the basics... such as NOT giving a stimulant laxative to anyone (or thing) that has a clear blockage, OR has any signs of appendicitis (iin people)... could be lifesaving if our access to medical care becomes difficult.

Some of this is simply routine animal husbandry... artificial breeding and manual pregnancy checking mares or cows both require someone putting their arm into the rectum of the animal. So, for that matter, does a lot of routine diagnostic exams, if an animal is showing distress or abdominal pain. We don't have access to MRI's or x-ray machines on the farm!

I have lots of protective gloves and sleeves on hand! LOL!

I dunno... I had a lot of differences with my adopted mother growing up, but one thing I truly admired about her was her attitude of "you'll never know what you can do until you have to... and there's never a good excuse to not try". She encouraged my natural interest in animals and healing... I was splinting the broken wings of wild birds at the age of 3. And I learned young the amazing recuperative power of animals and nature, given quiet, comfort measures as much as possible, and time.

I'm also simply unable to see something suffer and not at least try to alleviate that suffering.

I wrote all this (yes, graphic) stuff so that if someone here does - God forbid- end up in a situation like this, without professional help being available for any number of reasons (money, etc) they may have an idea where to start. And for prevention, keep plenty of dried prunes and stool softeners on hand... these truly are situations where "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"

Summerthyme