[Dailydrool] Bones

[Marilyn Briggs]

My son bought the bassets some bones, packaged and sold in the dog food aisle of 
the
local grocery store as dog treats. Cooked bones. He gave them to all my guys 
when I wasn't even home.
They seemed to love them, but when I started cleaning up, there were slivers of 
bones that 
were extremely sharp and pointed, which caused me to immediately panic. 
I have been watching all my guys for two weeks hoping no one has a jagged bone 
sliver 

caught in their intestine. I cannot believe these were sold as dog treats. And 
my son felt
horrible, but how could he possibly have known? 
I had a little discussion with my son and the only bones my guys will ever get 
are the raw, round, 

marrow bones on special occasions, maybe for Christmas morning. 

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.

Marilyn Briggs
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