by mnp13 » January 5th, 2009, 1:06 am
I almost lost Riggs. We've had some close calls, including me actually wanting to kill him, but this was totally different.
We were working on the TV in the living room and Riggs was in the other room chewing on something. He's normally loud, but he started banging around more than usual... and he didn't stop. It was much more frantic than his usual noise. I looked at Demo and said "is he choking?" He ran into the other room with me right behind him. Riggs had collapsed just as Demo got to him, I grabbed his collar, pulled him to me and started the heimlick.
For those of you who don't know, the doggie heimlick is done by hanging the dog upside down and doing compressions towards the dog's head. Thank god he only weighs 48 pounds. I did compressions with Demo trying to see what was stuck, it seemed to be moving, so he said to keep going. I was trying to keep it up but was slowing down. I handed him over to Demo to continue while I stuffed my hand into his mouth to pull it out.
He was pretty out of it for a while, but started to come around to his usual charming self. All three of us were covered in urine. And it wasn't just "normal" there was a musky, nasty stench to it. He didn't just release his bladder, it was more than that.
Up we went for a bath, and he didn't even fuss - just more proof he was hurting. After bath time, I toweled him off for a while and then he started truckin around looking for food. We gave him plain rice, and that quieted down a little, he's been sleeping since.
In any case, it was pretty damn scary. Thank God I had an idea on how to do the heimlick, or this post would be very very very different.
So, supervise your dogs when they are chewing on stuff, and always go with your gut when something sounds/seems "odd." Had we just shrugged and kept doing what we were doing he'd be dead. Heck, 10 seconds later he probably would have been dead, the heimlick was a guess, I'm not so sure that CPR would have worked (though I sure would have tried!)
A few glasses of wine later, and I'm finally calmed down.
Michelle
Inside me is a thin woman trying to get out. I usually shut the bitch up with a martini.