My 1 yr old cocker has a thing for scrunchies! He's always been obsessed with them, and socks, and he's eaten a few, although I didn't know until it came out the other end. Today I saw him with one but by the time I got there he'd swallowed it. :( I was hoping he'd have outgrown this behaviour by now. My collie had a passion for chewing the toes out of socks as a pup but had stopped doing it by the time he was about 5/6 months. Do you think he'll always do it or is there still a chance he'll give it up one day? I'm thinking if he's still doing it now it'll be a lifetime habit but I'm hoping I'm wrong!

Guess whose going to be poo watching all day tomorrow!

I do hope he does its not safe habit ! good luck with your poo watching

Aw my old collie used to love those bands kids wear in their hair=not to eat,she wanted you to throw them for her,they wouldnt go very far,too light and small,thanks for reminding me,and as for poo watching,"someone"stole some quality street,the culprit was betrayed by her shiny wrapping paper bespeckled poo!

I would do whatever I had to do to discourage this, too many stories of dogs having to be opened up due to blockages! My old boy loves to chew stones, thankfully he spits them out on command,
I have rung the post office and moaned at the manager as our postie will drop all the band that bind the letters together on the path and I saw a cat retching them up the other day- got a feeling I won't be flavour of the month but some people don't think when they discard rubbish.

Hope you get the out put you want tomorrow :)

Nothing yet, hopefully it'll appear tomorrow. He's passed all the others so hopefully this one will reappear as easily. At least now I have an excuse for my hair looking a mess, can't tie it up I've got a scrunchie eating dog!

I agree with Sawheaties.

Ensure that you don't leave scrunchies in reach of your dog.  If he can't get to them, problem solved.  An operation for removal of a blockage would pay for an awful lot of scrunchies.

It can't be a lifetime habit unless you let it.

Don't leave them lying around and try to do some tracking games with the pupas that's what's happening. Puppy is tracking/hunting stuff that smells nicely of you. Either more exercise or get pup seeking toys hidden about the place.

The scrunchies aren't left lying around, the one he got yesterday he climbed on the door of the washing machine to get it off the draining board while I was getting the washing tablets out of the cupboard. He's had 3 in nearly a year and no socks, so considering how obsessed he is with them thats not bad.

has it re-appeared yet ?

Not yet. Spoken to my vet who said it should pass quite easily as its soft and plyable and could take a couple of days. She said as long as he's eating, pooing and energetic as per usual then not to worry for now. She also said her pup has a thing for tissues and despite their efforts to keep them out of reach she still gets them occassionally.

They can be so quick but you have to try and out-smart them. I know from having to have a sock removed from a much bigger breed than yours, followed in the same year by my big boy twice swallowing the outer shell of stuffed toys that got down OK but were too big to pass. It was touch and go both times with him as he had retained them for a while before they had tried to move through and his tract had been infected.
Hope you get the sock out soon, remember to take tissues out with you for assisting!!!

>She also said her pup has a thing for tissues and despite their efforts to keep them out of reach she still gets them occassionally.

That reminds me of our old cross breed we had when I was a teenager- he liked nothing better than ripping a tissue to shreds :-) . He once got into my bedroom when I was out and found a roll of cotton wool (money saving habits as a teenager - how odd :-D ) . Anyway he pulled the roll to shreds - the entire room was covered on shreds of cotton wool. He shredded tissues all his life - never swallowed them just ripped them to bits.

Our first bernese took a fancy to my daughters crayons, the big chunky ones that you get for young children. We didn't notice until they started appearing from the other end still whole. He hadn't even chewed them. Yuk!

Still not come out the other end, so spoke to my vet again just now. She said if he's still eating, pooing, active then I just have to be patient and wait. If he's sick, has dire rear, or goes off his food then to bring him in straight away. I'll see her at agility tonight as we both go to the same club so she'll see him then anyway. I think my dogs are trying to kill me with stress! There always seems to be something going on with one of them lol.

Having had 2 dogs now who are serial swallowers, I am becoming quite expert!!

My first flatcoat luckily only ever swallowed things small enough to pass but the youngest one nearly died last year through a swallowed sock.

I teach all my dogs now to retrieve everything to me and I will 'swap' it for something better.  It solves the problem of chasing them with the forbidden item and causing them to swallow quickly.  I also try to keep everything remotely swallowable out of the way but dogs can be very resourceful :)

I could kick myself as when I saw he had it, instead of calling him to me and swapping it for a treat, I approached him to get it back, which I've done before and managed, but this time he obviously decided it was worth keeping so swallowed it.

I've chucked all my scrunchies out, as he has become so clever at finding them, my dogs aren't allowed upstairs but the 2 he got previously he must have sneaked upstairs, stood on my bed, and taken them off the bedside cabinet without disturbing anything else on it, and crept back downstairs without anyone noticing! This time the only way he could've reached it was to stand on the open washing machine doorway and used the edge of draining board as a handle to cling onto. And he did it in the time it took me to get the washing liquid out of the cupboard! So for people to say keep them out of reach isn't very helpful as obviously I'm trying to. Damn intelligent dogs! lol :D

Our 7mth standard poodle has an obsession with car sponges, well any sponges really and I do my best to keep them out of her way.  However my hubby keeps losing car sponges to her as he leaves his shed open and she goes in and helps herself.  She shreds but never swallows them and the garden has been covered in the peices. Thank goodness for the £1 store as I've replaced 5 so far!

You have gotta admire his persistance though!! And ban him frm watching Lassie, it's taught him too many naughty tricks!!

Got a hair clip today so have got rid of all the scunchies lol. It still hasnt made an appearance.

problem is once a swallower nearly always a swallower. i once owned a dog that swallowed and passed a phone lock & key still attached, it was for the old type dial phones. it was metal!

You might want to take a look at this old thread http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/board/topic/121924.html about some of our experiences of dogs swallowing foreign objects.  My working cocker swallowed a sponge a couple of years ago and had to be operated on - and it is a major, and potentially dangerous, operation since the risk of the dog dying from peritonitis afterwards is significant. Since then absolutely everything that could possibly fit in his mouth is kept out of the way, he is not allowed near cupboards / washing machines, etc when we open them. 

It's only scrunchies, he's never shown any interest in anything else. He'll walk around with a sock if he gets one but doesn't swallow them, although maybe they're too big for him. I don't think he would've swallowed it at all if I hadn't walked towards him to take it away because when I saw him with it he was lying down playing with it. He's obviously realised that I take them away so he swallowed it to make sure I couldn't. He was playing with a dopey bee in the garden earlier and this time I called him in a silly voice and of course he ran in and I gave him a sweetie, then went out and removed the bee. Lesson learnt, he's trained me well!

Scrunchie reappeared at agility last night! Very relieved to say the least.

I wonder what the other owners thought you were doing on your 'poo' inspection :-D :-D :-o

Glad it finally made its way out though!

Is this where I bring in my "going throught the motions" joke?

(I'll get me coat.)

I'm not ashamed to say I announced it very loudly and with much excitement lol. Luckily most of them already knew about it so had an idea of what I was on about. I'm sure Storm appreciated the clapping and cheering he got for his efforts, he hasn't had that much fuss over a poo since he was a puppy!

Is this where I bring in my "going throught the motions" joke?

(I'll get me coat.) Lol, thanks for cheering me up, just recovering from bathing the old girl.

> > I'm sure Storm appreciated the clapping and cheering he got for his efforts, he hasn't had that much fuss over a poo since he was a puppy!

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I bet he wondered what he'd achieved.  Wonder if he's give them a repeat perfomance next week to get his clap and cheer.  Glad it all came out.  Mine used to give me nice sparkly ones from crisp packets.