Today I read something rather disturbing on Facebook. A dog that had eaten a child’s teddy bear became very ill. When the veterinary surgeon operated she found a gelatinous mess inside and the dog had no living intestine left – the tissue was black and dead. Of course, the dog could not survive.
Children’s toys are stuffed with flame retardant and mite controlling materials which are highly toxic and designed to become gelatinous. The advice was to not allow dogs access to children’s soft toys.
When I checked this story on Snopes the results were inconclusive. I haven’t read any further reports of such tragic incidents.
Regardless of this, it is never a good idea to allow dogs unsupervised play with any toys, whether they are designed for children or pets. Dogs will chew things to destruction and seem particularly fascinated by the squeakers in toys. Even rawhide chews can be problematic. I remember having to extricate a rolled chew from the late, great Dominie as she struggled and failed to swallow it. The hide had unrolled as she chewed but she had not bitten it into short lengths. It was fortunate that I was there - I don’t know what would have happened otherwise.
