[Dailydrool] beef bones

[boo62c at netscape.net]

I am a lurker but feel I really need to speak up about feeding beef bones or bones of any type to bassets.  I have two bassets, Sadie my 9 year old queen bee and Bumpy, my two year old.  It is because of Bumpy that I am writing about feeding bones.  This summer we almost lost him because he ate and swallowed a T-bone or pork chop bone whole.
  We had been on a walk on a Tuesday after garbage day.  Our garbage people are not the cleanest.  Well, they had left junk about that we were carefully avoiding.  However, at one point I looked over at my husband who was walking Bumpy and I noticed Bumpy had "something" in his mouth.  We hurried and grabbed him and fished around in his mouth but it was gone.  We didn't think too much about it thinking he'd probably gotten a piece of grass or something like that.  
Thursday, two days later, Bumpy was acting a bit odd.  Just not himself, you know how a mom is when you just know something isn't right?  I checked him all over but he was eating, playing, going out ect.  Friday, same thing.  He wasn't acting sick just kind of punky.  Saturday, my hustband was scheduled to judge a rib and BBQ contest.  I took Bumpy with me.  We were there and it hit me that he still just didn't seem quite right.  I took him to the vet that afternoon, thinking they were going to laugh at me.  The x-ray showed a lot of gas in his tummy.  You would never have known it.  He was eating, drinking, going outdoors, playing with Sparky, our beagle.  
  Since he didn't seem in much distress, they gave him charcoal and sent him home on gas-x, scheduling him for another x-ray on Monday.  Within just a couple hours of being home, Bumpy was in deep trouble.  Full bloat and in deep distress.  I rushed him back to the vet where they x-rayed him again and did immediate, lifesaving surgery.  The reason for his distress ended up being  A WHOLE T-bone or pork chop bone that he had swallowed.  The x-ray hadn't shown it because the bone was causing all the gas that blocked the film from showing the bone.
 I'm sure it happened on that walk.  The bone reached from one end of his tummy to the other and was blocking the tube to his intestine.  Some parts of the bone had shattered and had pierced a spot in his intestine and in his tummy.  He had to have a section removed from his intestine and the vet said he was 50/50 chance of dying at one point.  Thankfully, Bumpy is fine and healed now but I would never, EVER feed any type of real bone to a basset.  Apparently, they can and do swallow them whole and it can kill them.
I know lots of people do feed real bones but to me it is not worth the risk, especially after what Bumpy went through.

 

 


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