Anyone who has accidentally broken a glass or dropped a jar in their kitchen knows that immediate worry about scooping up all the shards and tiny pieces. If you have a dog then you always know how they like to investigate every new thing, and keeping them out of the kitchen can be difficult. But you’ve done your best, you’ve swept up all the glass you could find but still you have that nagging sensation… ‘What if my dog ate glass?’
If You Suspect Your Dog Ate Glass, Do Not Attempt To Induce Vomiting! Call Your Vet Right Away!
First, Are You Sure Your Dog Ate Glass
Thankfully, dogs don’t typically choose to eat glass, but mistakes and accidents do happen. They might mistake something made of glass for something else they are familiar with, a Christmas ornament for a ball for instance. In the scenario we outlined previously, the dog might have jumped at the chance for a tasty snack and took some glass down with it.
However it happened, there’s a chance your dog ate glass, so now what? If the pieces are small they’ll most likely pass through their GI tract just fine. Often dogs will immediately realize their mistake and ‘spit’ out the glass bit that it hurting them. But, those are the second best-case scenarios (the first being your dog simply didn’t eat it in the first place!), what if the glass was larger?
The Dog Ate Glass – Now What
First, check your dog’s lips, tongue, and mouth for blood. This will indicate whether they were cut by the glass as they swallowed it. Make a note of the locations that appear to have been cut or injured. Next: call your vet!
In most instances, your vet won’t recommend inducing vomiting in your pup. The pressure and force that vomiting involves could cause the glass to cause more damage than when they went down the first time. The digestive tract of dogs is surprisingly low pressure, meaning that with some help the glass could be reasonably passed without trouble.
To help this along, your vet may suggest giving your dog some specific foods that can help encase and cushion the glass, preventing it from causing injuries as it goes through the digestive system.
Those foods are:
- A piece of bread
- Canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
- Mashed potatoes
These foods all are soft and quickly lose their shape, making them ideal to cushion any potentially sharp edges.
With that handled you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled for any of these following:
- Lethargy
- Lack of appetite
- Constipation
- Blood in stool
- Abdominal pain or swelling
These symptoms all suggest that something is going wrong, that there is a puncture, cut, or blockage in your pet’s intestines. If your dog displays any of these symptoms, call you vet immediately and update them, this is a medical emergency and needs attention, it may even require surgery to get sorted, so don’t delay!
We hope this information has helped ease your worries. Unfortunately, few things go together as often as dogs and eating things they shouldn’t so it happens to just about everyone. Thankfully, because it’s a common enough occurrence, when it happens we know how to handle it. If you’re in Tucson and need a new vet, give us a call and we can start working with you today to give your pet a healthy, happy life!
