Chicken wing swallowed whole...any concerns??

    • Gold Top Dog

    Chicken wing swallowed whole...any concerns??

    I've read this happens a lot, and I'm not too terribly worried. But the big guy, Rivers, just had a try out with his first chicken wing, he gave it 3 smacks and down it went!

    Any need to worry??  The wing still had the skin on it, is this alright??

    • Gold Top Dog

        I like the name Rivers. Jessie caught and ate a couple half grown rabbits, fur and all, the same day last summer and my vet said a dog her size shouldn't have any problems, and she didn't, so I think Rivers will be fine.

    • Gold Top Dog

     You'd freak out if you watched my little Maggie dog eat.  She takes pork bones and crunches a couple times (basically snaps them in half) and swallows them whole.  One time I had occasion to take her in to get x-rayed just a couple hours after she ate.  The doctor tossed the films up on the light box, gave a little start, then said, "Oh, that's a little bit of bone she had for breakfast, right?" 

    There was a faint highlight about the size of your thumb in her stomach, all rounded edges.  That's all that was left of a pound of chicken quarter - two leg bones, back and ribs in other words.

    If it goes down the hatch and you aren't feeding COOKED bones, then it's safe in the stomach.  The stomach doesn't let solid food proceed to the gut.  Things like rubber balls, plastic chew toys, and socks end up there because they aren't natural and there's no defense system to keep from passing them.  That's true of cooked bones too. 

    But something like a raw bone is quickly attacked by a broth of enzymes and acid and reduced to hydrolyzed collagen (which is squishy) and component minerals. This doesn't take long at all.  It takes a crock pot about 24 hours to do the same thing to a chicken bone, a pressure cooker about four hours (if you had one that could perform this function), and the stomach just a few hours, tops.

    Choking is your biggest danger with a gulper, but I can't imagine a dog that size having a problem with a wing. 

    • Gold Top Dog

     I don't see a need to worry. I always feed mine with the skin on. They swallow a lot of bones or they crunch and then swallow but don't really chew them small. My River (no s) just chomps up a bit even on big quarters.

     I would say if you gave dipping sauce with it (preferably tabasco) then Rivers should be perfectly fine.  If not at least Ranch or Bleu Cheese I hope.

    • Gold Top Dog

    No dipping sauce.....that was cute btw. He never even asked for any.

    Yep, the wings were raw for sure. Wouldn't dare feed cooked bones of any kind.

    He definitely swallowed it without issue...I had the feeling he would, as I've read many other concerns from people that their big dogs had too.

    My little guy ate half his chicken wing, he wanted more, but I was to leary of giving him too much too soon. A friend from the dog park just went through a bout of pancreatitis with her furbaby, and seeing as I had a dog go through that years ago, it just kind of scared me to feed my older little guy a whole wing at once with skin on it.

    He's never had any stomach issues though, and seems fine tonight, guess it's just the fear. I remember when my old big girl had it, she was in severe pain and sick for weeks. Never knew what caused it though.

    Thanks guys!

    • Gold Top Dog

    that's a fairly normal dog eating method- chomp it until you can swallow it and let the gut do its work.

    your typical pancreatitis victim is a middle-aged overweight mostly kibble-fed dog who suddenly gets a meal of a large quantity of fatty fresh food. So feeding RMBs regularly is actually protective against the condition. Caveat: individual genetics may dictate a different response to diet/pancreas function, this comment applies to most but not all dogs.