Can You Give A Dog Tums For An Upset Stomach
Friday, July 3rd, 2009Our Australian Shepherd, Mittsy, was pretty much a normal puppy as far as chewing on things goes. She did the shoe thing and the wooden legs on our kitchen chairs. The puppy chewing phase lasted until she was about 15 months old.
After that we could be certain that our furniture was safe, but there was never a month that would go by without Mittsy testing something new to see if it was edible. Thank goodness for pet gates, or we probably wouldn’t have much left of our house and home.
There are many things that are considered dangerous to a dog if ingested. At some point or another, Mittsy has pretty much eaten everything on that list, with only minor indigestion.
Apparently chocolate is at the top of the dangerous list. Yet chocolate was always a favorite for Mittsy. She especially loved Easter time and would have her own Easter egg hunt looking for some misplaced chocolate items. It didn’t matter much whether there were wrappers on the chocolates, because they would simply become part of the meal.
The stomach pains she would experience would last about a day and then she would be back on the hunt to see if there was anymore of this glorious food to be found.
These Easter delights were obviously quite seasonal, but with a house full of teen aged daughters, Mittsy’s favorite staple food was readily available 365 days a year. What would that be you ask? Why lipstick of course, and the redder the lipstick the better she liked it.
I don’t know how many times we had to try to remove red lipstick from our beige carpets. It would often take more than a few passes of the carpet cleaner to get it all out. The question for my wife and I was whether we should be trying to train Mittsy or our kids about the issues with lipstick and chocolate. Of course there is always the handy pet gate.
Mittsy’s crowning moment was yet to come.
Our family was invited to spend a week-end at a friend’s cottage one year, dog included. This cottage was fairly remote and had several acres of bush land around it, so it was a very special outing for all of us. Fortunately for Mittsy there would be other dogs there to play with.
As usual, the weekend was a smashing success with beautiful sunny days, warm water and great company. Unfortunately it came time to start packing up for home. I guess the act of packing was some sort of sign to Mittsy that she had better feed up for the long trip home.
Her first find was the french loaf that we had been saving for that evening’s Italian feast. She managed to eat the whole loaf of bread before anyone caught her. You would think that this would fill her up, but oh no, not Mittsy.
Believe it or not, I had gone into the cottage looking for a frisbee when something caught my eye out of the cottage’s back window. There was Mittsy chewing on anything she could find in our friend’s compost heap …yuck.
I managed to chase her away from her compost delight, but within half an hour or so, Mittsy became very ill. Every breath from her mouth was steaming in the air, even though it was a 90 degree day.
It would be four hours before we got back to civilization, and we thought by starting the trek as soon as possible, we could get Mittsy to a vet before nightfall. We finsihed packing the car, said our goodbyes and headed out.
There were several stops on the way home as Mittsy tried to clear the contents of her stomach. You can’t believe how disgusting that was. Our kids wanted to get out of the car and walk home.
By the time we got home, Mittsy had somehow totally recovered and as soon as we opened the car door, she was off on a run wanting to play in the yard. She was off her normal diet for a couple of days, but no more than that.
We kept her water bowl filled with fresh water, and watched her closely, but there were no obvious health related danger signs. Mittsy would look us in the eye with what seemed like a smile on her face. I’m sure if she could talk she would have said something like “ I told you I could eat anything”. All we could do was to marvel at the dog with the cast iron stomach.
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