A $5 dog toy can quickly turn into a hazardous and expensive mistake. Even the most innocent, cutesy-looking dog toy can become a deadly hazard if it is not durably constructed to prevent small parts from being eaten by man’s best friend.
Each year, over 200,000 dogs experience obstructions and choking hazards from chewing on or eating things they shouldn’t, even if they are toys intended to be chewed on.
One pet parent says her dog’s mistake of eating pieces of a BarkBox toy from last Halloween resulted in over $8,000 in vet bills to diagnose and remove the resulting obstruction.
BarkBox gone wrong
In a video that has drawn over 83,000 views on TikTok, Florida-based realtor and content creator Kellie Bowling (@kellsellshouses) says her dog ate two legs off of a Jack-o-lantern octopus toy, and began to display behaviors over a few days indicating that she did not feel well.
Over this time period, she says her husband even had to assist their dog as she passed the first leg of the toy, but it did not seem like a bigger issue until she began vomiting in their bed.
“I was watching her as she was trying to settle down and get comfortable, and she was so restless,” Bowling says. “She’d sit in a spot, then she’d get up and she’d move somewhere else. Then she’d come lay on me, and she’d go somewhere else, and she just—poor thing—she just looked so uncomfortable. And I’m like, OK. Aloha, our vet, they close at midnight. They are also an urgent care, you can use them for emergencies. They are only closed from midnight to six every day, so I was like, we’ve got to take her in before it’s midnight.”
@kellsellshouses #barkboxtoys #boxerpuppy #enterotomy #emergencyvet #vetbills #worthit #nomoretoys #poorpuppy ♬ original sound – Kellie Bowling
When they took the six-month-old puppy to the vet, she says the vet came to the conclusion that her dog likely had an obstruction, and asked to do exploratory surgery. On the low end, she was told to expect costs around $5,000, and $8,000 on the high end.
“The doctor called me yesterday and said I really recommend that we do exploratory surgery just to see if we can find where it is,” she says.
Ultimately, the vet did find the blockage—another leg from the toy—and was able to successfully remove it. Her dog is expected to recover just fine, the vet said.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Bowling and BarkBox via email regarding the video.
What dog toys are safe for your pet?
Determining what kinds of toys are safest for your pet is down to their activity level and personality, according to the Humane Society.
Toys with squeakers can become choking hazards if a dog ingests the squeaker. The same is true of toys with ribbons, strings, button-type eyes, or if they’re filled with problematic stuffing like nut shells or polystyrene beads. Essentially, toys with anything that can be chewed off are not going to be safe for more serious chewers, and small toys can become choking hazards for large dogs.
Some viewers recommended specific brands they found met their needs when it comes to safely entertaining their dog.
“We have chewers I only buy the fluff and tuff toys on Amazon,” one commenter wrote.
“I learned quickly with the barkbox toys to stick close by for the first 30 mins after handing them off to my husky,” another said. “That was how long it took her to shred it to get to the toy inside.”
“I swear by the Kong toys,” a third added. “Black ones for extreme chewers. They really last for a very long time. I learned the hard way.”
How can you reduce costs when this happens?
Several viewers shared that they had similar experiences at the vet when their pets ate something they shouldn’t, and recommended pursuing pet insurance in the future to reduce the brunt of the financial burden of providing quality care to her pets.
“My 1 year old beagle I adopted ate a freaking open clothes pin,” one commenter wrote. “It was stuck in her throat, and cost us 4 thousand to get it removed and luckily everything was fine.”
“Pet insurance but also buy only toys from LLBean!” another commented. “They last forever and cant be destroyed!”
“Went through that twice last year,” a further user wrote. “Two separate dogs. One ate a stone outside and one eight cheesecloth from the trash. $7800 total had insurance though. Still scary. glad she’s OK.”
Update Oct. 12, 2024:
In a phone interview with the Daily Dot, Kellie shared that her dog, Poppy has made a full recovery and recently had her staples out.
She recommended that pet owners be cognizant of what kinds of toys they allow their pets to play with, and supervise playtime to ensure their pets are not ingesting pieces of them. Prior to this experience, despite having dogs that were heavy chewers, she did not have an issue with them eating pieces of toys and not passing them.
“I’ve never had a dog have this problem before, or eat a piece of anything, personally,” she said. “Now, my adult daughter, she has two miniature dachshunds, and one of them last December, ate a used tampon, which I saw somebody in my comments had the same problem.”
Kellie also said she was contacted by BarkBox about the incident, and told that there were no other reports of dogs eating pieces of that particular toy.
In response to an email query about the incident, a BarkBox representative shared that the company is looking into the matter, mentioning that they had reached out to her directly.
“We put great care and attention into the design and safety of our toys, and each product undergoes rigorous testing,” the representative stated via email. “We’ve developed comprehensive testing protocols to create the safest and most enjoyable toys for dogs. Our team of inspectors complete more than 2,000 inspections each year, evaluating over 800,000 toys for even the most minor imperfections.”
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