In case your pet gets into the turkey spirit during the holidays like mine do, you might profit from a couple of my adventures with veterinary emergencies.
Because I was going to be busy on Thanksgiving Day, I cooked a turkey a few days ahead. My dogs and cat didn’t seem nearly as impressed by the aroma of roasting turkey that day as I was, but a few days later when the carcass and bones hit the garbage can their interest perked up.
Having lived with counter-surfers and dumpster divers before, I’m careful about secure disposal of food waste. My stainless steel step-lid can has worked well for my two current chow hounds until a couple of days ago, partly because they’re not smart enough to step on the pedal to lift the lid. Nevertheless, I came home the other evening to find the kitchen and living room strewn with garbage. Ernie, the Beagle/Pug mix, was hoarding a pile of chomped up leg and wing bones on the living room rug. Scooty, the perpetrator of the crime, was still foraging through debris in the kitchen searching for more turkey skin, having already downed the whole carcass.
First things first, I gasped in horror, imagining perforated intestines and life-threatening pancreatitis from the fatty skin and drippings. Next, to Ernie’s dismay, I swooped up the pile of bone shards. Scooty had already made quick work of her perilous bounty.
Then the call to the emergency vet. Are fragmented cooked turkey bones as dangerous as we always hear about? Will they perforate something on the way through? Do I need to bring them both in for Xrays?
The answer was, “This is a hurry up and wait situation.” Do not induce vomiting. That is more likely to cause perforation than just letting the bones pass through the digestives tract, which does a pretty good job of breaking them down. Watch for vomiting and diarrhea, and if there is blood in it or it goes on for long, bring them in.
I remembered my Chessapeake Bay Retriever who got into the garbage after a holiday dinner 10 years ago and ate the entire, fatty turkey skin. He developed severe diarrhea and vomiting, and spent a week in the veterinary hospital on an IV for pancreatitis. So I knew the danger of an animal ingesting too much fat.
Somehow Scooty and Ernie survived their escapade without having to cough up a year’s allowance in vet expenses. But it was a very good reminder to keep the turkey left-overs out of reach of pets!
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