I was upstairs in the sewing room, the men-folk hadn't been gone for more than ten minutes, and I heard strange noises coming from downstairs. (While the guys had been waiting for time to go next door, they were playing a game of chess on a little magnetic travel chess board ... the kind that also includes magnetic checkers the size of dimes.) Daniel, dear neurotic Daniel, was busily chewing and eating the checkers.
It's been a while since Daniel ate anything dangerous. His former favorite foreign objects were socks, shoe strings, and junk mail. Who would think that he would pick checkers off the coffee table and snack on them? The checkers he ate had to come back up, and (fortunately for Daniel) I'm really good at first aid AND I'm not squeamish.
If you are ever in a situation like this, where your dog has eaten something and you have to make him/her vomit, here's what to do ... these directions use normal household items and are for a dog the size of Daniel, who is a 70 lb. greyhound ... check with your veterinarian if you have a dog who is considerably larger or smaller than Daniel.
1. Get the bottle of regular old hydrogen peroxide out of your medicine cabinet.
2. Draw up about 2 ounces of peroxide in a turkey baster.
3. Make dog swallow the peroxide.
4. Let dog outside.
4. Dog will inevitably rush to the closest patch of grass to try to soothe his/her now-icky feeling tummy.
5. Within a few minutes, dog should vomit.
6. If dog doesn't vomit, which usually is what happens with Daniel, you can administer another ounce of peroxide ... which usually does the trick.
7. If dog STILL won't vomit, administer a turkey baster full of water and shake the dog to get its tummy feeling REALLY icky. (a vet tech gave me this trick while I was on the phone with her after Daniel had eaten a sock and wasn't vomiting after two doses of peroxide.)
If your dog has eaten something that is REALLY dangerous, don't take things into your own hands. Call your veterinarian and get your dog there as soon as you can. This is what we did last year when Daniel ate an unknown amount of Grandson's ADHD medication. (After we counted the pills in the bottle and accounted for the ones scattered about, we determined that he didn't get a lethal dose ... but it was a sizable overdose and he required an overnight stay at the emergency vet.)
Sifting through the contents of Daniel's stomach after he vomited, I found at three red checkers and two black ones ... all chewed up and quite jagged on the edges. It was a good thing that I heard what he was doing, and that I knew what to do fix the situation.
Now YOU know what to do, too.
