Kitchen Garden Forum

Today for the second time in her life my greedy bitch let greed overcome her wish to live.

So how do you deal with a choking German Shorthaired Pointer?

The dog seems unable to move, frightened, unwilling to stand and trying to vomit without the usual extravagance of movement that goes with a doggy spew. Breathing also appears restricted.

First you prise its ridgidly clamped shut jaws open to see if there is anything visible and find nothing. This also allows you to check the breathing.

Second you pick it up by the hind legs, with its back against you, put one arm round the body at the leg to stomach transition and slap it on the stomach just below the ribs, repeat until it shows signs of easier breathing or a wish to really vomit, when you release it and watch as it seems to produce a semi-deflated white football from its mouth.

Not sure what it was that came up in a pint of foamed saliva, that resembed whipped egg white, but it was brownish and about the size of a golf ball stood on to reduce it to half height.

Some Useful links.
UK Vet UK e-How USA Vet

Well done for keeping your calm and remembering to follow the procedure, Peter.
It not always that easy when your under pressure.
Hope your dog is feeling a lot more like her old self now.

Thanks OH, yes she is, trying to hypnotise our evening meal into leaping out of the pan.

My beloved has worked out that the offending item must have been a Stilton Rind she had put in the flip-top kitchen bin.

Thats good news Peter.
And at least you have got someone else to blame for the offending item, fancy putting it in the bin, whatever next.

Thanks for the links Peter, I had no idea you could do this on dogs and we have 4. I hope we never need to - but at least now I can have a go.

Sounds quite frightening to have to deal with something like that. Just a passing thought. I have a relative who is totally allergic to any kind of blue cheese. Just one mouthful will bring on all the full symptoms of anaphylactic shock and within minutes she finds herself fighting for breath so has to carry around a device with her for injecting an antidote. I've never heard of dogs suffering from anaphylactic shock in the same way but could the blue Stilton rind possibly have triggered the attack?

Out of curiosity I Googled "Do dogs suffer from Anaphylatic Shock?"
To my surprise I find that they do, just like humans and can be allergic to certain foodstuffs in the same way that humans are. There is more information at

http://www.petwave.com/Dogs/Dog-Health- ... -Dogs.aspx

Primrose, no shock involved, just a greedy bitch guiltily trying to gulp down something she had snarfed from several layers down in the kitchen pedal bin before anyone walked into the kitchen and caught her with her snout in the bin.

OH yes I do have someone else to blame, the Dog!