# Eating sticks



## Keegans_mommy

Am I the only one with a golden who absolutely HAS to eat atleast one stick while at the park? He literally finds one, picks it up and finds a nice place to lay and then it's the entire thing. If I take it away he just finds another. Is it normal? I'm just worried about his stomach and intestines.. Wood cannot be good for them 


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## Vhuynh2

Molly likes to play keep away with them. If she's off leash and finds a stick to chew, I just ignore it and keep walking and she will quickly ditch it because "mommy's leaving". She also gets a very delicious treat when she "checks in" and she has to have an empty mouth for that. When she's on leash, I'll let her carry one in her mouth but not chew. I do not think that wood is good for them. If you're really concerned, I wouldn't let him off leash where there are a lot of sticks and teach him a solid leave it.


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## Keegans_mommy

Vhuynh2 said:


> Molly likes to play keep away with them. If she's off leash and finds a stick to chew, I just ignore it and keep walking and she will quickly ditch it because "mommy's leaving". She also gets a very delicious treat when she "checks in" and she has to have an empty mouth for that. When she's on leash, I'll let her carry one in her mouth but not chew. I do not think that wood is good for them. If you're really concerned, I wouldn't let him off leash where there are a lot of sticks and teach him a solid leave it.
> 
> 
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Your girl sounds adorable. I will take your suggestions into consideration. It's helpful that he knows leave it and taking treats should be a good idea too. Thanks 


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## Dallas Gold

Vet's Tales

The dangers of throwing sticks for dogs – Telegraph Blogs

Stick Injuries - Pet Doctors

Oral injuries in cats and dogs | Webvet



I'll stop now.... just please be careful when your dog gets sticks.


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## Tuco

This reminds me of all my friends parents never letting them on the jungle gym because they could hurt themselves when i was a little kid. so I had to play with the only 2 outof dozen kids who's parents let them on it while everyone else was bored in the sand box, I'm sure they're was a good chance I could fall and break my neck on the climbing ladder or break my arm, Afew kids did, but that's life, all they were doing was oppressing they're kids. I'm sure there is a 1 in 50000 chance that something like that will happen to your dog but comeon being paranoid about throwing a stick on occasion is ridiculous. Just my two cents.


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## Dallas Gold

The National Institute of Health (US Govt) actually did a study on dogs and stick injuries. Here is the link: Acute oropharyngeal and esophageal stick injury in ... [Vet Surg. 2008] - PubMed - NCBI

Reference to this for the types of injuries and mortality rates:


> Of 41 dogs, 27 had oropharyngeal injury and 14 had esophageal injury. Five dogs with esophageal injury died. All dogs with radiographic evidence of cervical emphysema (n=34) had ventral median cervical exploration or necropsy; 11 had wood fragment(s) retrieved. In 7 dogs without radiographic signs of cervical emphysema, wounds involving the pharynx or soft palate were treated by local debridement and lavage using an oral approach. Mean follow-up time was 36.4 months. All wounds healed without complication; however, 1 dog that was not surgically explored had a piece of wood surgically retrieved 3 months later.
> 
> CONCLUSIONS:
> Radiographic evidence of cervical emphysema is a frequent finding in dogs with acute penetrating oropharyngeal or esophageal injury and indicates trauma to the deeper cervical tissues. Acute penetrating injury of the oropharyngeal region, when treated appropriately, has a better prognosis than acute esophageal penetration.


In my opinion, if the National Institute of health actually did a small study on the substantial risks of injury due to sticks, the potential risk is something that raises my eyebrows.


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## Tuco

Wow than kids shouldn't be in playground because I found about a dozen studies and statistics from just one google search on playground injury concluding that its a "legitimate risk" -MacArthur 

Here's one study that shows a large number of injuries in children on playgrounds 


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## Tuco

Darned copy and paste never works, just do the google search lol


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## Barkr

I just don't like the barfing at 2am.


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## NFexec

Barkr said:


> I just don't like the barfing at 2am.


THIS is an excellent comment! We would allow our last dog (a lab - and they can be worse than goldens when it comes to sticks!) to chase after a stick, and she would LOVE to find them on the ground and gnaw the bejeebers out of them! A couple of times they got stuck in her mouth and I had to dig in there and pull it out. Fortunately, she must have known I was trying to help and she let me do it. But sometimes, I'd find pieces of sticks in her poop, and the occasional barf that would follow an unusually voracious stick meal. 

Were we lucky she never got injured or really sick from sticks? Probably. But given that we repeated the stick routine a few thousand times and no real ill will came of it, I guess it comes down to sensible exposure to the habit. I know all it takes is one time - but the same can be said about a lot of otherwise moderately harmless activities, too. Just my 2 cents.

Doug


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## Fella 77

Sadie loved to chew sticks. I used to take them away from her as much as I could but my yard has a lot of trees and its almost impossible to keep it twig and stick free. My new boy Ben seems to like the sticks and leaves and I tell him no when I see him chewing. I am not looking forward to acorn season..


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## Wyatt's mommy

Keegans_mommy said:


> Am I the only one with a golden who absolutely HAS to eat atleast one stick while at the park? He literally finds one, picks it up and finds a nice place to lay and then it's the entire thing. If I take it away he just finds another. Is it normal? I'm just worried about his stomach and intestines.. Wood cannot be good for them
> 
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


Bring a ball and play fetch with him. 

It's normal. I wouldn't worry about it.


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## Gwen_Dandridge

Maddie feels strongly that she has to pick up a stick of some sort before she gets into the car, every time. The back of the car looks like a compost pile. 

I'm on the pick your fights kind of thing, no rocks and no stucco.


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## sabrinamae12

I just always watch Kuy. If it's a little stick, I don't worry too much. But if it's a log, as he is sometimes inclined to drag to the house, I don't let him eat it. I'm sure there is some risk involved, probably more than other toys, but I've heard horror stories of tennis balls stuck in dogs' throats, tongues stuck in balls and Kongs with a hole in them (tongues swelled and they had to remove the toy with a blade at the vet), and bones breaking teeth. But Kuyani loves tennis balls, loves Kongs, adores bones, and thinks every rock he can find is the perfect chew toy. I'll settle for sticks over rocks haha  If you're worried about it, you can always distract her with another toy or some treats.


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## madden

My 12 week old girl, Madden, cannot go outside without finding a stick to play with. She shreds them with her teeth but it keeps her calm and focused on the stick for a while instead of focused on biting me! lol. I try and watch her just to make sure she isn't ingesting them.. she seems to just like chewing!


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## Allahrwi

Storm loves eating sticks. He always finds them in our backyard and will sit there for hours chewing away. It's weird.


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