Mijoy Yorkies and Mijoy Biewers

A choking pup/dog….

I received a call yesterday (28 October 2010) from a member of the public, telling me of her horrific experience when her small yorkie started choking on a piece of chicken she had been fed by her daughter.  The YORKIE is a smallish dog weighing 1.4kg.  This is a frightening experience even for a seasoned dog owner. If that chicken is not removed from the throat, the dog cannot breathe and will die in a very limited period of time. There will be NO time to get that dog to the vet.

What do you do????? Ask your vet to explain to you should you ever be faced with this situation.

How can you prevent this happening? Don’t feed your dog chicken as a treat??? Do not feed anything other than kibble.  I had an experience myself about three months ago when a pup bit off a piece of a hoofy and it lodged in its throat.  This happened during the night, and the noise the pup was making awoke us to the problem. I remove this sort of thing by instinct. Be aware if you push it down, it could tear the windpipe and damage the throat. Luckily this was a bigger pup of about three months of age.  I managed to yank out the offending piece of Hoofy. 

Be careful of Kentucky chicken especially and Vienna’s.  Recently one of my teacups was eyeing out a Vienna and I stupidly offered her tiny pieces, at the same time my phone rang, I sat down close by and the pup was in a play pen. She fell over the Vienna although in tiny pieces had stuck in her throat. The teacup weighed 250gms at the time. That is SCARY.  Such a tiny dog and such a tiny mouth and an extra tiny throat. Fortunately, I managed to clear her airway. It could have gone the other way, and I could have lost her.  

Kentucky Chicken - roughly 15 years ago, my one teacup girl 700gm SUZIE stole a piece of Kentucky off of a plate and fell over as well.  Again we were fortunate in getting the chicken out of her throat.  This is a major scary situation – even for me.  The answer to this – if you own a tiny or small yorkie be it a pup or adult dog. DO NOT FEED anything that can stick in that throat.

A large sized DOG choking - offer the dog some bread, if it is just gagging trying to get the object out of its throat, it hopefully will eat the bread which should push the object down into the stomach.  If you have a large dog choking that has collapsed, you will have to come to the rescue.