Lobster Shell Incident Leaves Cody Bear Seasick

Last Labor Day Weekend, Janet of Scottsdale, Az., was doing the after-dinner dishes when she glanced over and saw that her garbage can failed to completely shut leaving the remnants of a lobster tail exposed. Upon this realization, she also noticed that her dog, Cody Bear was chewing a bit louder than usual. Instead of his usual Nylabone, he had a lobster tail hanging from his mouth.

Shocked and startled, Janet took Cody Bear to an afterhours clinic where the veterinarian gave him an X-ray to reveal how much of the lobster shell he had actually devoured. “Cody Bear had essentially pulverized the portion of the shell he had ingested,” said Janet. “However, we thought it was best to not let any pieces pass through his system in case there were sharp edges.”

After swallowing some medicine to induce vomiting and some much-needed TLC, Cody Bear recovered fairly quickly and has been able to keep his paws clean since the incident. Nowadays, Cody keeps his chewing activities to mainly the bones, chews and toys provided by Janet. “When he was a puppy, he liked to sharpen his teeth on rocks in the yard,” said Janet. “He eventually stopped this practice, so I keep a constant supply of Nylabones.”

Based on this unfortunate experience, Janet recommends pet insurance to other pet owners in case a similar incident should arise. “Pet insurance really helps when you have an emergency or if your pet comes down with a serious condition,” said Janet.

In addition to lobster shells, there were a number of other interesting foreign objects consumed by pets that were among the over 6,500 claims received by Veterinary Pet Insurance in 2011. Here is a list of the most notable objects on the list:

• Three sewing needles
• Rat (swallowed whole)
• Dirty diaper
• Dental retainer
• Cell phone case

For more information about the danger of foreign object ingestion, please visit the VPI Pet Health Zone: http://www.petinsurance.com/healthzone/pet-articles/pet-health/Your-Pet-Ate-What.aspx.