Its been a year and a half since jacob chewed up and ate half of a harness. I took my eyes off of him for 10 minutes and it cost me amost 4K dollars. I just want to share my story because honesty it was kind of secretive because i didnt want to be seen as a youg irresponsible husky owner.

Jacob has warn harnesses since i got him, never been into collars, and as he's grown, I've kept the little harnesses hes out grown as a memory. one day, i believe it was feb. 1st, i was doing an early spring cleaning and tossed a bunch of 'keep' items i found in my closet onto the floor and in my room, with my back turned towards the closet im assuming he snuck in and grabbed an old harness from when he was about 3 months old. I found it about 30 min later in pieces in the living room, o well. The next day when we were on our walk he didnt poo which i thought was weird, but hes weird so i went to work and later on that day whn i came home there was vomit all over the floor. I cleaned it up and gave him olive oil. while sitting in my room finishing my organizing i heard a SCREAM, something like a child being killed, i ran into the livig room and he was a poo position and screaming!!! after that, he threw up. it was 6pm, on a friday, i took him to the vet. thy examined him, gave him anti vomitting meds, stool softner and i think its called...Barim? a fluid thats supposed to brighten up his intestines for the xrays he would have the following day. at home i gave him all the meds, (which i had to force feed him which was odd) he wouldnt eat or drin anything eiter. he just laid down, didnt want to get up, barelyhad the energy to open his eyes. while i was in the bathroom, he did the scream again, by the time i got to where he was there was about 3 puddles of vomit about 6 feet in diameter all over the house and he was layin down. i collapsed with paper towel in hand crying, in my mind .... he was dying....

i called my vet which is a 24 hour emergeny vet and they told me to bring him in right away. they told me they'd do the tests on him while he there so they could monitor him and give him an IV.i went home...in tears. about 7 hour later, at 4 am they called me, with results...i went back, and they told me they suspected he had something trapped in his intestines, they recommended exploratory surgery, if i didnt do it, he probaly wouldnt make it. mind u he was not even one year old.

it took all my savings,$4200 for the surgery, special food and 7 day hospital stay after the surgery, antibiotics, and a bunch of other medicine. he had 6" of harness trapped between hsi stomach and intestines.

i got a lot of crap from a couple people, saying i should have just put him down, but i couldnt and wouldnt. he is my baby, he is the only thing that keeps me grounded when my world is turned upside down.

while he was in the hospital, i got swine flu. and wasnt allowed to see him

i finally was able to pick him up from the vet February 10th, on his first birthday. he laid in bed on top of me, (cone on and all) closed his eyes and didnt move for about 8 hours, i know he missed me as much as i missed him. and i know that even though to this day i cant catch up with my money or manage to save a tenth of what i had in savings before all this, that i made the right decision. hes my world.

Powerful story. Thanks for sharing.
I completely understand. When my last husky got cancer, the vet gave me three options: amputation of her leg, very invasive and expensive surgery or putting her down.
i chose the surgery. A friend of my wife's asked why we weren't putting her down.
She's not our friend any more...

did the surgery work? to me really its not about money, i'd do w.e i have to do to make sure hes ok.

Wow Jackie, I'm so glad that he made it! I would have done the exact same thing. Even if I have to take loan out! NO WAY I'm put either of my babies down unless i have absolutely NO CHOICE. That had to be one intense surgery for him to be in the hospital for 7days! He's very lucky to you have you as a mommy

We've had several scares with Kody and eating EVERYTHING! The worse was when he ate 2 of husbands work socks! I knew that he had eaten them because when I walked into the room my husbands shoes were infront of the bed where he takes them off, but no socks in them (he NEVER throws his socks in the dirty clothes and just puts them in the shoes). I immediately asked him where the socks were and he's like "ummm". I wanted to kill him! This was on a Friday and on Sunday Kody started throwing up stomach acid and was just laying down. He finally threw one of the socks up, but I knew that there was another one in there. We were about to rush him to the ER when he threw the other one up. I WAS SO WORRIED!!!

I'm like a crazy person picking stuff up all around the house, but he's still managed to get a hold of a few things lately, but I try SO HARD to keep him away from things. For exp, he ate a piece of shirt that of course (MY HUSBAND) left laying on top of his crate and pieces of a squeaky toy (no more of those for him)!

I would do the exact same thing. I have faced the same ridicule about money and my dogs. My reply is if your kid had the exact same illness would you put them down? My dogs are my kids and I wouldn't have it any other way. Glad he's okay.

Melissa, jacob still gets a hold in things here n there but its things like, a wrapper, twigs, very small things and throws them up or I find them in his poo, my moms lab, drake is 11yrs old and honestly had probably eaten and thrown up at least 50 socks. She tries her best to.prevent him from getting them but he still does sometimes. Jacobs recovery was so long cuz they actually removed a piece of his intestine that had lacerations from straining against the harness to move it

I know this is an older post, but I was so moved by this. I would do the same thing. Gosh, it is wonderful to see that the world is full of compassion still...

Your story made my day inspiring. That's real love for your beloved dog.