Has anyone's dog ever eaten dry beet pulp pellets?

[mininik]

The emergency visit, surgery and after care will run over $1000. They removed about 7 POUNDS (over 10% of Jake's body weight) of soaked beet pulp from his stomach. It started as only ONE POUND DRY. I took a picture of it and him at the hospital where he'll be staying at least until tomorrow and will post later. There is still the chance of an infection from stray pieces of beet pulp possibly lost in his body cavity during surgery or parts of his stomach dying from being so stretched out. DEFINITELY DO NOT LET YOUR DOGS AROUND THIS STUFF EVER!!! Jake went after it with a full tummy of kibble after showing NO interest in the pellets in the past month he's been around them. He literally had to of gobbled it down in a few minutes between playing with the other dogs one room away.

 

[mininik]

 

[Charlene]

OMG! SO glad you caught this in time, what a disastrous outcome it would have been if you had not noticed!

when you mentioned earlier that he was drinking a lot, my first thought was that water would make the BP expand in his tummy. poor guy!! hope his recovery is swift and thanks for posting this. it's a lesson to us all!

 

[Alex]

Oh My God! Thats a ton of beetpulp!!

Im glad you got to the vet in time.

 

[Jill]

Oh my goodness!!!

That poor baby but thank God you were able to get him to the vets and have him taken care of.

I'm going to show this thread to H this evening. We are not currently using beet pulp but we have and probably will again. I want him to see how dangerous it can be to the dogs, too.

When does he get to come home?

 

[qtrrae]

Makes me wonder "if" you feed it dry - couldn't this happen to the horses? I never feed beet pulp dry but I know there are several people that do.

 

[Sonya]

Wow...poor little guy. Hope he pulls through ok.

 

[whitney]

Whew. My friends lab ate a rag rug TWICE!!! Had to have surgery TWICE!

Sorry guys thats why I wouldn't feed beet pulp DRY.

If that was 1 pound=7lbs wet, it kinda sounds like it soaks up gastic juice better than plain water, as I usually soak 3 parts water to 1 part shreds.

 

[stormo41]

wow, I'm glad he is okay and hope recovers fast!

Thats a wake up call for me, I don't have a barn, or take my dog to any barns, but it's just scary I'll never take my dog to a barn now. My dog is a pig and eats anything he can, inface last week i was tossing a rotten carrot into the garbage and missed and he gobbled it up and was sick the next day. I had to spend my whole day off cleaning up dog sick off my new carpet

again i hope jake feels better soon!

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

Makes me wonder "if" you feed it dry - couldn't this happen to the horses?

It isn't ONLY that he ate it dry that caused this problem. If you let your horse have free choice dry beet pulp it might be an issue but a horse's stomach holds quite a bit and a reasonable amount will still have room to expand with out a problem.

Sure hope Jake will have a full and speedy recovery.

 

[Margo_C-T]

Good job, recognizing the possibility of a serious aftermath and getting Jake to the vet when you did! Sending hope and good thoughts for him to recover uneventfully!

Like you, I wouldn't have thought that ANY dog would be 'interested in'such a thing as beet pulp pellets. You may have saved someone else's dog by sharing this story!

I routinely bring the evening's beet pulp up to the house after I feed in the AM; leave it sitting in the heated garage, where my Ridgeback, now that she is up in years, likes to sleep on her bed when I'm in the house. I do keep a bucket lid 'pushed down' into the bucket (after adding warm water to prep it, this lid helps 'hold in the warmth')...but believe I'll just bring it on into the house and set it up on the counter until it's time to 'mix it', from now on!

As for horses--I personally wouldn't DARE feed the miniatures(or a 'big', for that matter') dry beet pulp PELLETS(or even shreds)--horses actually don't have much STOMACH capacity; are 'constructed' so that the stomach empties as they 'go', so to speak....not sure how one would be affected by a 'meal' of any size of dry beet pulp pellets(which are VERY tightly compressed; they are hard as ROCKS!), but wouldn't want to find out!

Margo

 

[mininik]

Jake should be coming home tomorrow.

You all should definitely be VERY careful where beet pulp is stored. If your horses get out can they get to it? One of the vets who operated on Jake said she had a horse get out and eat an entire BAG of beet pulp once. Fortunately they were able to suction it out of her, but it could have killed her if it had expanded as much as it did in Jake. PLEASE BE CAREFUL.

 

[MountainMeadows]

Nikki I am so glad that Jake is going to be OK - thankfully you were home and saw what he got into. I once left a bag of beet pulp pellets in the back of my UNcovered pickup truck --- and it rained! Not a pretty sight ! ! Pretty much filled the bed of a full-size pick-up - scared the heebie jeebies out of me to think that could happen to horses if they got into the dry stuff and gorged themselves --- which they probably would with my luck.

 

[twister]

Thank goodness you were alert to the fact that Jake got into the beet pulp in the first place and then took him back to the vet quickly when you figured things weren't right.Thank you for sharing the story too, will make me much more careful of where I store the beet pulp in future. Hope Jake recovers fully and is soon back to his old self.

Yvonne