Dog ate a whole chicken leg
July 9, 2021 5:52 PM   Subscribe

I left the table for 5 minutes, and now the chicken bone is gone. It was an air fried chicken leg bone. He's a 2 year old corgi. I fed him a half hour before and a piece of bread after. Is there anything else I should do? I'm worried.
posted by bbqturtle to Pets & Animals (11 answers total)
 
He'll probably be ok but the vet will want to do an X-ray to make sure none of the bones are lodged anywhere they shouldn't be. Source: my poodle nephew who stole & ate half of a whole defrosting turkey and was fine.
posted by bleep at 5:58 PM on July 9, 2021 [5 favorites]


Anecdotally my 20 lb Havanese occasionally gets a chicken leg bone off the street despite our best efforts (I decided I didn’t want to risk my hands anymore reaching into his mouth) and he seems to have a cement mixer for a stomach and it has never caused an issue although when we first got him the vet was concerned about some bone in his intestine when we took him in at the same time as he had other gastrointestinal issues. I would call your vet and see what their immediate advice is. Based on my experience if he continues to eat and poop normally for a couple days then you are out of the woods.
posted by rustcellar at 6:12 PM on July 9, 2021 [4 favorites]


Call your local emergency vet. I've called ours several times and they've always been honest about whether or not I should panic.
posted by Green Eyed Monster at 6:17 PM on July 9, 2021 [8 favorites]


Response by poster: Okay... Thanks guys. I'll just look at the poops and hope for the best. If anyone has any advice (or tips from the vet when this has happened before) let me know!!
posted by bbqturtle at 6:18 PM on July 9, 2021


I have a dog that will eat anything and live in a neighbourhood that seems to have a love for fried chicken and crows that raid garbage bins. So yeah, said dog has chomped on more than one cooked chicken bone, and recently. As somebody told me a while back, though the dog-chicken-bone thing is a concern, it's not a huge concern. In other words, it would be really bad luck if anything bad came of this. But yes ...

call your vet and see what their immediate advice is. Based on my experience if he continues to eat and poop normally for a couple days then you are out of the woods.
posted by philip-random at 6:55 PM on July 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


Be alert for bleeding or belly tenderness. In the wild and in any neighborhood with poorly secured garbage, dogs, raccoons and other critters eat all sorts of sketchy things and are usually fine. As the adult, you get to worry about the outlying incidents. A dog we had once swallowed a baked chicken breast (with bones) in a matter of seconds. He was delighted and there were no ill effects other than my incomplete supper.
posted by theora55 at 7:55 PM on July 9, 2021 [6 favorites]


theora55 has it right, but also make sure you have a number and address for an emergency vet on hand.
posted by Grok Lobster at 8:20 PM on July 9, 2021 [3 favorites]


We are not veterinarians (I'm not), but observation throughout the evening and if you cannot stay awake, maybe a check in within the middle of the night. Definitely have telehealth or a 24 hr clinic on hand.

This is more common than we'd like, and chicken bones can definitely splinter or cause blockages, but a lot of dogs have super hardy digestive systems.
posted by firstdaffodils at 10:11 PM on July 9, 2021


Cooked chicken bones do not splinter the way uncooked bones do. So if the dog has his teeth, he should have crushed the bones without any splintering.

If he swallowed the leg whole - unlikely for a corgi, but I have seen a beagle do it - even less chance of splinters.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 2:39 AM on July 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


Monitor very closely. Get set up for a immediate vet run and wake up every two hours to check on the dog. It could turn out alright of course, but please don't take any chances. I know two dogs who died from cooked chicken bones.
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:36 AM on July 10, 2021 [2 favorites]


We used to actively feed dogs cooked chicken bones in the bad old days of my childhood, none got sick, so clearly it depends.
posted by emjaybee at 9:06 AM on July 11, 2021


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