Owners of a dog that nearly died after it was impaled by a stick being thrown for it to fetch, have started up a Facebook page to raise awareness about the dangers of throwing sticks for your dog.
Hayley Reed’s pet dog Penny (pictured), suffered extensive damage after running into a stick, which resulted in operations, heartache and huge financial expense.
Hayley got in touch with VB to help spread the word about how dangerous this seemingly harmless act can be.
Common problem
The group, ‘Throwing sticks could kill your dog‘ was set up last week and is already gaining momentum.
Judging by links posted on the Facebook group, this is a common problem and vets have been warning against it for years.
Hayley explained Penny’s story, “We were on a walk at St Catherine’s lighthouse and I was throwing the stick for her, as we have done numerous amounts of times, when she ran for it. Unfortunately she ran at it too hard, it stuck in the ground and ripped all of her throat lining from the force of it as well as dislocating a tongue bone.
“We were told by the vet, Matthew Twitchett that she had done extensive damage and would need emergency surgery to remove the bits of wood and stitch her throat back together. She was on the operating table for six hours and wasn’t out of the woods when she had undergone that saga!
“She had a feeding tube coming from her neck so that we could inject liquidised food straight into her tummy, bypassing the injured throat as well as drains coming from the wound site to drain any liquid that gathered in her throat and prevent infection.
“After just a week, she was slowly beginning to lick water and liquidised food and has now made a full recovery, although she has to eat mashed food until the stitches in her throat have dissolved.
“We have started a campaign to ask people to consider the implications of throwing sticks for their dogs. It’s such a normal thing to do I don’t think people realise the dangers.”
Visit the Facebook group to find out more.
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