When Pitou eats anything

Paper, plastic, pebbles, grass, wood.Does your dog eat everything and anything compulsively?What is this problem due to, what are the risks for your dog and how to overcome it?Dr. Sébastien Kfoury answered the press questions and explains a curious phenomenon called "Le Pica".

This is the ingestion of non -edible abnormal objects or substances.PICA can be the symptom of illness or pain.People think their dog eats lawn or wood to get vomited.But that's not quite that.They have abdominal or stomach pain and will eat things to try to appease their discomfort.Which will of course cause vomiting because of the irritation caused in the stomach by these foreign bodies.Which can be beneficial in certain cases, if what has been ingested is toxic or harmful.Some dogs will eat handkerchiefs or lick the walls abnormal.PICA can also be behavioral, because of boredom and anxiety: stockings, panties, waste in the bathroom is more often swallowed because dogs love the strong odors of their owner!

Yes, in the clinic, I very frequently see dogs who start to excessively swallow things because they have a sore throat or belly.It can be dangerous, because dogs are not going to be very selective in what they will swallow, like strings or laces which are "so -called linear" foreign bodies that the intestine has a lot of difficulty bringing up.They can wrap around the intestines and cause very severe obstructions sometimes.

What to do when you realize that your animal ingested something?

Many things like the lawn are harmless and pass very easily in the stool, but if they are solid wood branches that he has eaten in large quantities, it is preferable to do a x -ray of the stomach and then to himvomit.If they are handkerchiefs or paper, it will deteriorate easily.In any case, call your veterinarian or an emergency center that will tell you what to do.But time is counted: after three hours, it is too late to vomit the dog.

We generally use 3% hydrogen peroxide or salt, provided that we rely on the doses recommended for the weight of the animal.Watch out for salt poisoning!

Can a dog eat away at a bone or wood just for fun?

Creating a bone or a piece of wood is normal.It is also good for the roaring dog, but the owner must determine what must be used.Ideally, we never give real bones, which are too hard.They offer very solid edges and the dog's jaw is not made to cut a femur in half, for example.The teeth will fracture before the bone!The ideal is to give malleable things, which will dissolve if they are swallowed aside or if they are stuck in the throat, like leather bones which slide easily into the esophagus and do not cause obstruction.I have euthanized several times in my life as a veterinarian of animals that had swallowed bones of chicken, pork or lamb which had perforated the esophagus.

In dogs who will vomit yellow bile (equivalent of gastric reflux in humans), it is advisable to separate meals into small portions through the day.Otherwise, pepcid for humans can be used for dogs with stomach burns associated with ingestion of something, to remove acidity.

The puppies will go and seek probiotics by doing this and have a bacterial flora which is very healthy, equivalent to that of his brothers or his mother.It is not harmful, but really disgusting.But it is not a symptom of a disease or a deficiency.It's rather behavioral.

It's rare.It is rather when they play that they swallow anything.They do not have the ability to spit out what they put in their mouths.They have small hooks on their tongue and will swallow things more easily.Unlike dogs, they do not fall.Cats are very good for vomiting, however!It is also part of their protection against their own hair when they groom themselves, in order to avoid blocking their intestine.