My puppy got into some cotton balls! Is this a symptom of an obstruction?

While this advice is late in coming, LEAVE IT and DROP IT are two commands that need to be taught to every single dog when they are still pups. 

IF she pooped, more than a couple drops, then she probably will be fine.  However, I hesitate to say that since my niece just had to have surgery on her small dog for an obstruction.  No one can really offer more than an opinion, on line, sight unseen, but my suggestion is always, when in doubt, see the vet, or at the very least CALL and talk to someone there.

I agree with Glenmar. My little pup ripped apart a toy (not meant for dogs) and ate nearly all of the stuffing. You can imagine my horror when I discovered that my, then 15lb puppy, had done this.  She had trouble going to the bathroom for a while. I took her to the vet the next day and she ended up being fine. My advice is to get your dog checked out. She may be fine, but I personally, would rather be 100%. Please update us on how she is! :)

@glenmar

While this advice is late in coming, LEAVE IT and DROP IT are two commands that need to be taught to every single dog when they are still pups.

IF she pooped, more than a couple drops, then she probably will be fine. However, I hesitate to say that since my niece just had to have surgery on her small dog for an obstruction. No one can really offer more than an opinion, on line, sight unseen, but my suggestion is always, when in doubt, see the vet, or at the very least CALL and talk to someone there.

Thank you very much I will be working on those commands. I called her vet and explained everything that happened and she said I should wait until tomorrow to see how she's doing so I guess I'm going to have to play the waiting game, I'm super nervous even though she seems just fine, heh.

@Kaitlin58

I agree with Glenmar. My little pup ripped apart a toy (not meant for dogs) and ate nearly all of the stuffing. You can imagine my horror when I discovered that my, then 15lb puppy, had done this. She had trouble going to the bathroom for a while. I took her to the vet the next day and she ended up being fine. My advice is to get your dog checked out. She may be fine, but I personally, would rather be 100%. Please update us on how she is! :)

Oh my! Thanks for the reassurance, 4 tiny cotton balls seems a lot less harmful than what your little pup ingested! I feel like an overly worried momma haha. I  called her vet and explained everything that happened and she said  she seems fine so far and I should wait until tomorrow, which is relieving and not at the same time! I'm just glad she's still sprinting everywhere, which is something I normally wasn't fond of, but now the sight and sounds of her running into walls is music to my ears haha

@Conniemb03

I have a 5 month old puppy that got into some cotton balls last night. She had 4 that were in a bowl of water and being the 50 pound pup she is she was able to knock the bowl down and gobble them up before I could stop her! She was then for whatever reason given a couple of slices of white bread by my dad, horrible move, I know.

She passed her stools fine a few hours later but when the morning rolled around and she went out for number 2 she had trouble passing it. Only 2 droplets came out, so I got real worried and started doing research then found she may have an obstruction. I'm worrying myself sick and wondering if I should be spending whatever is left in my bank account ($400) if it turns out it's nothing serious. She's running and playing just fine, just the happiest puppy she's always been. I'm confused because I've read that 100% pure natural cotton is used when a dog swallows something sharp so the object gets caught in the cotton and it passes fine. I let her out about 3 hours later and she passed her stools and it looked completely normal, I even poked at it to make sure (gross I know)

I didn't feed her anything this morning but 2 tablespoons of pumpkin and then 2 more after she pooped

I've heard of many stories where a dog would eat even worse than a cotton ball and pass it through, and I'm not sure if she has an obstruction because she was able to poop just fine afterwards and maybe it was just the white bread that caused the constipation this morning.

I'm going out of my mind! I believe she just swallowed the head of her fabric toy out of nowhere!  I brought it out of her crate to find it's decapitated and I can't find the head anywhere! I just bought the toy two days ago and she's already destroying it hah this puppy is driving me nuts, I'm even more worried beyond belief now.

@Conniemb03

@Conniemb03

I'm going out of my mind! I believe she just swallowed the head of her fabric toy out of nowhere! I brought it out of her crate to find it's decapitated and I can't find the head anywhere! I just bought the toy two days ago and she's already destroying it hah this puppy is driving me nuts, I'm even more worried beyond belief now.

  Yikes! Hopefully she is still feeling well. I would keep all toys away from your little one when she is not being supervised. Leaving a puppy unattended with toys is asking for trouble ( I learned the hard way!)  I personally don't like fabric toys because my Harley is an aggressive chewer and has been since she was a puppy. At a whopping 30 lb ( over one year old) I still don't trust her with stuffed toys. It is her mission, every time she gets hold of one, to empty out all of the filling as soon as possible.  

   You may want to look into getting some tougher toys as your girl grows. I stock my house with "indestructible" toys, but even those are best played with under supervision. It only takes a second for something to go wrong. You can find some of those toys here> www.dog.com/Search.aspx   Best of luck, please update us with how she is doing!

@Kaitlin58

@Conniemb03

@Conniemb03

I'm going out of my mind! I believe she just swallowed the head of her fabric toy out of nowhere! I brought it out of her crate to find it's decapitated and I can't find the head anywhere! I just bought the toy two days ago and she's already destroying it hah this puppy is driving me nuts, I'm even more worried beyond belief now.

Yikes! Hopefully she is still feeling well. I would keep all toys away from your little one when she is not being supervised. Leaving a puppy unattended with toys is asking for trouble ( I learned the hard way!) I personally don't like fabric toys because my Harley is an aggressive chewer and has been since she was a puppy. At a whopping 30 lb ( over one year old) I still don't trust her with stuffed toys. It is her mission, every time she gets hold of one, to empty out all of the filling as soon as possible.

You may want to look into getting some tougher toys as your girl grows. I stock my house with "indestructible" toys, but even those are best played with under supervision. It only takes a second for something to go wrong. You can find some of those toys here> www.dog.com/Search.aspx Best of luck, please update us with how she is doing!

Fabric can be bad for obstructing because you can't 'see' it on an x-ray.  

The signs of an obstruction are simple.  They stop being able to keep food down (when the food eaten tries to pass from the stomach into the intestines it will "fill" the intestine from where the obstruction is back to the stomach -- and any food ingested beyond that will sit in stomach acid  and they'll puke anything after that.

On the other end -- they will pass any poop that is *beyond* the obstruction and then they won't be able to poop any more.

So when you get a dog unable to pass feces AND at the same time is throwing up everything it eats -- VET NOW.  That's an obstruction.

@calliecritturs

@Kaitlin58

@Conniemb03

@Conniemb03

I'm going out of my mind! I believe she just swallowed the head of her fabric toy out of nowhere! I brought it out of her crate to find it's decapitated and I can't find the head anywhere! I just bought the toy two days ago and she's already destroying it hah this puppy is driving me nuts, I'm even more worried beyond belief now.

Yikes! Hopefully she is still feeling well. I would keep all toys away from your little one when she is not being supervised. Leaving a puppy unattended with toys is asking for trouble ( I learned the hard way!) I personally don't like fabric toys because my Harley is an aggressive chewer and has been since she was a puppy. At a whopping 30 lb ( over one year old) I still don't trust her with stuffed toys. It is her mission, every time she gets hold of one, to empty out all of the filling as soon as possible.

You may want to look into getting some tougher toys as your girl grows. I stock my house with "indestructible" toys, but even those are best played with under supervision. It only takes a second for something to go wrong. You can find some of those toys here> www.dog.com/Search.aspx Best of luck, please update us with how she is doing!

Fabric can be bad for obstructing because you can't 'see' it on an x-ray.

The signs of an obstruction are simple. They stop being able to keep food down (when the food eaten tries to pass from the stomach into the intestines it will "fill" the intestine from where the obstruction is back to the stomach -- and any food ingested beyond that will sit in stomach acid and they'll puke anything after that.

On the other end -- they will pass any poop that is *beyond* the obstruction and then they won't be able to poop any more.

So when you get a dog unable to pass feces AND at the same time is throwing up everything it eats -- VET NOW. That's an obstruction.

Thank you, her vet told me the same thing and she's doing just fine so far. The only problem is she's only going number 2 once a day, both today and yesterday but she has passed the cotton and is running around like a maniac as usual lol. I'm keeping a close eye on her, as well as sitting out in the cold dissecting her poo (yuck)! She's been eating fine, she still has a great appetite, hasn't thrown up, no lethargy. I'm just waiting for the piece of toy to make it's way out, but I'm driving myself crazy doing so because what if she never even ate the toy to begin with, haha. And now that you mention fabric does not show up on an x-ray is making me feel even more like a worried mom, even worse, like a worried grandmother, oh boy.

@Kaitlin58

@Conniemb03

@Conniemb03

I'm going out of my mind! I believe she just swallowed the head of her fabric toy out of nowhere! I brought it out of her crate to find it's decapitated and I can't find the head anywhere! I just bought the toy two days ago and she's already destroying it hah this puppy is driving me nuts, I'm even more worried beyond belief now.

Yikes! Hopefully she is still feeling well. I would keep all toys away from your little one when she is not being supervised. Leaving a puppy unattended with toys is asking for trouble ( I learned the hard way!) I personally don't like fabric toys because my Harley is an aggressive chewer and has been since she was a puppy. At a whopping 30 lb ( over one year old) I still don't trust her with stuffed toys. It is her mission, every time she gets hold of one, to empty out all of the filling as soon as possible.

You may want to look into getting some tougher toys as your girl grows. I stock my house with "indestructible" toys, but even those are best played with under supervision. It only takes a second for something to go wrong. You can find some of those toys here> www.dog.com/Search.aspx Best of luck, please update us with how she is doing!

And thank you for the website!  I will definitely be buying more durable toys because I am deathly afraid of this happening ever again. Strange how one dog can be completely different than the other. My other boy spits out whatever he rips from his toys, it's funny to watch, he does everything he can to get rid of it. Now I feel a bit guilty for assuming my girl would learn to do the same

Yes, all dogs are different! My brother has two huge dogs that can play with their toys forever and not even think about ripping them apart, but my little angel is prone to eat anything she is left alone with.  I am very glad to read that your girl is doing better. It can be scary when this kind of thing happens.

Let me tell you the story of my 6 german shepherds.  Only one of them cherished his stuffy and carried it around like a prize.  The others committed stufficide on a regular basis.  One of my boys LOVED to eat the top off his black kongs.  Those are supposed to be the roughest and toughest.....he also destroyed the toys made of firemans hose.

Bottom line, with dogs you have to baby proof your home just like you would with a toddler.  Get down on their level and look for "goodies" but also be very cautious of what you allow them to play with without strict supervision.

glenmar  LOL "Stufficide!"

Believe it or not, I didn't come up with that, but it's a very apt description!  Sheba, my female, used to play with a stuffy for hours, and then, with surgical precision, she'd make an "incision" right down the center of it's chest and remove the squeaker, then go wild with the rest of the innards!