"Do dogs get hemorrhoids?" That’s how the phone call began late last night. Actually they don’t typically get the same problem in that area that people do. On the other hand, they can certainly have polyps in the rectum, or even rectal prolapse (turned inside out). "Does it look like a red bump? How big is it? Marble sized? Pea sized?" "It looks like a ribbon." Well, she had me there. Over-the-phone diagnosis is always tricky, but I couldn’t figure the ribbon thing at all. "He’s panting and acting like he’s in pain." Hey, let’s go back to work tonight.
Do you remember those ads: "Here’s your brain. Here’s your brain on drugs."?
Here’s your butt. Here’s your butt with a jagged chunk of bone stuck in it. Can you say, "Owie"? Three days earlier, this dog had received a lovely bone for his Christmas Eve present. It came from the grocery store, labelled "Pig Bone; not for human consumption". If it’s not for people, it must be for dogs. He ate it really fast. In a previous post, I talked about the pros and cons of chew bones. These pictures will be added to that post.
When the old boy ate the bone, his teeth broke it into fragments. This one looks a lot like an arrowhead made by prehistoric man, doesn’t it? One of those jagged ends was hung up in the back door. That deal where he was acting like he was in pain? I don’t think you’d have to spend much on acting lessons for that one. Fortunately, it wasn’t hard to remove after he was sedated. Oddly enough, he didn’t want you to monkey with it while he was wide awake and feeling it.
If looking at that piece of bone doesn’t make your bottom hurt, then you probably don’t understand why we don’t feed bones to dogs. I suspect that most of you do understand.