i almost killed my dog. NO MORE HUMAN FOOD!

[vash]

what a weekend. i came home from an autoX to find my mini schnauzer very lethargic. she vomited that night, and in the a.m. we found her shaking and her stomach was bloated and painful to touch. it was on a sunday, so it was off to the emergency room for dogs. turns out, she has severe pancreatitis. this is brought on by eating human food. she stayed the night, getting plasma transfusions, IV, and other stuff intraveneously. the cost estimate was $5100+. i almost fainted. i yanked her out this morning, wrote a check for $1700 and change, and took her to the SPCA where we adopted her. she was previously owned by a board member, that died of cancer. the other board members elected to cover the remaining cost. 5 more days of hospital stay. i only type my story to get you dog lovers not to give your pets table scraps. the emergency vet said that they have ordered extra supplies to cover the expected increased visits over the holiday season. all because visitors are sneaking turkey to pets. i think my mistake was: some pate that my gfriend gave me. i hate pate, and instead of tossing the playing die sized piece, i "accidentally" dropped it on the floor. i only wished my bigger dog got to it first. my bad. the PO fed the dog regularly from the table.

cliff

[RickM]

Good advice. A few food items we take for granted are toxic to pups....Chocolate being one.

[VaSteve]

Cliff, sorry about your dog. Did they say what caused it? Turkey is bad?

I never had a dog growing up, but my g/f, now wife had one. We have bonded and after 4 years I still haven't gotten tired of giving him food, because I get such a kick out of finding what he *won't* eat.

A partial list of my observations thus far:
Steak: yes
Sushi: Not really
Bananas: Once
Lettuce: No
Pretzels: No (!)
Chips: Yes
Whipped cream in a can: Yes, runs from the other room to get it
Cat Food: yes
Hickory Farms Summer Sausage: Yes, but fortunately I missed the return of the casing.
Yogurt: Yes - take the cups and runs off with it.

[JavaBrewer]

Dog's can have suprisingly sensitive stomachs - and yet if given the opportunity they will eat cat/dog crap and drink from the toilet.

Beware of the vet. Many I've come across are out to get you financially. They play your emotions "You only want the best for Fido right" and then guilt you with useless and/or unnecessary proceedures/drugs. That said it sounds like your dog needed some attention (hope she's doing better) but you were right to make a break for it. We always give table scraps to our German Shepherd, Ryker, but very small portions of something good (fish, meat, egg) mixed with a little rice and his normal dry dog food. His absolute fav is salmon.

Ryker got into a "disagreement" with a older male wiener dog about 1 year ago. Since Ryker was the aggressor (and it was all my fault - off leash chasing tennis balls) I was at the vet with my Visa card out. Needless to say the vet realized my vunerable position and took it to me ordering every test that could be done, probably a psyc and AIDs test as well (on the victim dog) causing the bill quickly swell well North of $1K.

[tabs]

My BIG Boy Airdale likes spicy food like Curry and Chili..even Pickled Japlenos...he'll eat banana, lettuce anything U put in front of him....Hey wait a minute I'm talking about myself here.....

Now my Female Airdale doesn't like vinegery foods....or lettuce or bananas....but shes bin know to swipe a 1/4 of Butter right of the Kitchen counter top when I wasn't looking....

But I do keep them away from Chocolate and ANY easily splitered bones...including pork and small beef bones...

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Our GS digs steamed broccoli and cauliflower.

[juanbenae]

my old yellow lab would eat apple cores, grapes, and just about any fruit that i would consume while he watched. he once ate a baggie of my "lettuce", that nearly cost him his life. not the reaction to the ingested herb, but my reaction to him EATING my "lettuce".

he was a job dog, he went to work with me everyday for 10 years while i built homes. it was a constant battle to keep others on the job from feeding, or throwing garbage where he could get to it. he once at a big zip lock bag that had something in it that intrested him. i did not know what he had eaten, i just knew that he was not eating anything and was making strange stomach noises. well like 3 days in i had decided he needed to go to the vet. i went out back to get him and he was in a "pooing" position without much happening. i looked closer and found just a bit of the bag hanging out. enough that after i gloved up i was able to remove it from him ( im not sure if it was because i hate to spend at the vet or my love for my animals but it had to be done) with a yank, tug, and ripout it was freed, as was he. he turned to me right after and his look was PRICELESS, i would imagine mine was too.

cliff, pate would make me sick too you girlyman.

[vash]

zero tolerance! none, zilch! absolutely no human food whatsoever. apparently the pancreas swells, and then when any substance is taken orally, even water, pancreas goes to work secreting enzymes essential for food digestion. BUT on a swollen pancreas the enzymes leak and the pancreas is also "digested" in the process. the problem with the holidays, is this is the time that most dogs get the most human food.

i got lucky, with the free vet. probably not next time.

[john70t]

Our lab has been great. Never ripped open the garbage, never eated from plates on the table.
He's about 14 years now, pretty ancient but still gets up pretty fast. A few years ago he could barely walk, but went on a diet and it's done wonders: one cup morning and night of Iam or Kirklands, one aspirin morning and night with cream cheese or pb, and one 1000mg glucosamine in the morn(along with me).

He cleans dishes and occasionally gets tuna or a bite of meat, but other that that has done very well. Occasionally he'll eat deer/dog doo in the woods and puke, don't know why. I figure he wants to smell different.

[widebody911]

Originally posted by VaSteve
Pretzels: No (!)

Your dog is a Republican?

[84porsche]

To add to the list of food, I would like to include hotdogs. I had a BBQ once and both dogs left piles of barf all over the backyard. But as far as other foods, they eat almost anything they find. My dog occasionally chews on the grass or mint in the yard and eats avocados from the neighbor's tree. She also loves pool water but has had almost no stomach problems after 10 years.

[Decolliber]

My German shepard once took a whole platter of chocolate chip cookies off the kitchen counter and gobbled the lot. She looked a bit bilious and produced some very unpleasant odours, but took it all very well.

[911boost]

My German Shepard once ate an entire bowl of Hershey kisses, tin foil and all when he was a puppy. He has had a very easily upset stomach ever since.

I second the bit about Vet's being out to own you....

[VaSteve]

The best one I forgot about was a box containing 1 dozen individually wrapped German chocolates containing liquor! This was totally by accident, he found it while we were out. We came home to find the box shredded, with a bunch of wrappers on the floor. Some looked like they were opened with fingers (!) while others were a mangled mess. Out of the dozen, we only found 7 wrappers (!). He was fine thank goodness.

[Pat S]

Originally posted by k911sc
my old yellow lab would eat apple cores, grapes, ....

Just a note, grapes and raisins are also poisonous to dogs...
http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer?pagename=grapes

Our boxer loves fruit, especially apples and strawberries. Go figure.

Pat

[84porsche]

Originally posted by VaSteve
The best one I forgot about was a box containing 1 dozen individually wrapped German chocolates containing liquor! This was totally by accident, he found it while we were out. We came home to find the box shredded, with a bunch of wrappers on the floor. Some looked like they were opened with fingers (!) while others were a mangled mess. Out of the dozen, we only found 7 wrappers (!). He was fine thank goodness.

That must have been hilarious, a drunk dog. My sister's dog dumped a bottle of Corona over after a party and started licking it up. Needless to say, he was fine just a little drunk.

[osidak]

guess I am not a pet lover (have a cat) but I would have said nice knowing you fido but that $5,000 is better used else where.

[cantdrv55]

I fed my dog nothing but good quality dry dog food and he lived to the ripe old age of 18 years. I miss that old frisbee dog of mine.

[bluebullet]

Mine would do anything to get into anything he could..and he was big and if you tried to stop you got your hand bitten off...great danes for ya

He decided that eating a whole box of chocolate truffles was best for him...so after that he walked around for 10 minutes and went downstairs on my parents bed and died. It was kinda hard tryin to hold a 100+lb great dane up the stairs by yourself with tears in your eyes....

My boxer/dane mix is now 12 or 13..I forget..hes got a little bit of arthritis in the front joints during the winter, but an aspirin pill each morning usually keeps him in good shape. During the summer he usually spends all his time sitting out in the sun or under the trees sleeping. What once was a dog who would leap 4 feet in the air to catch a frisbee now barely wants to get up in the morning.

My chocolate lab is 14, and hes just movin right along like we first adopted him in 93. Still runs around and does everything..hes gonna live forever lol.

The newest edition to the family is a now 4 yr old doberman/shepard mix. The worst part is shes very dominant, and the fast few xmas's shes been put in her cage because she fights with my boxer for leader of the pack....they've both drawn blood at one time or another during that day trying to show each others whos boss. For the rest of the year nothing comes between then.

The only thing I ever gave them sometimes was milk..if I had any left over in the cereal bowl in the morning lol

[RickM]

I believe that Anti-freeze ingestion is the number one unnatural cause of death for dogs...so be careful. That's why I bought a 911...LOL.

How many of you have to stop your dog from eating the grass? Not good either, especially if there's Scotts Weed'n Feed on it. I don't allow my dog on the lawn for 2-3 weeks after the stuff goes down.