A silent call for help

The other day when Thor was in the house, I gave him the rest of a rawhide to chew on while my husband and I watched TV. About a half hour later Thor abruptly gets up from his bed and walks over to Travis and I, he's acting kind of funny. Travis notices that the sides of his body are sucked in and he's barely breathing, "I think he's choking!".We jump up and Travis starts to give him the Heimlich maneuver to the dog the best he could. We also pat him on the back a couple times. Sure enough, he coughed up the last bit of his rawhide that he swallowed without chewing well enough. The rest of the evening he stayed by our sides in admiration, knowing he had a near death experience and that we saved him.

Our dogs often choke on the last little bit of rawhide because they don't take the time to chew it enough to make it soft and flexible to swallow. Which has lead us to the habit of taking it from the dog before it's to the swallowing size. We never give our dogs rawhides unless they are supervised. Please take note, do not leave your dog unattended with a rawhide bone. Also, be sure you can remove this treat from your dog safely at anytime. If your dog respects you as the pack leader, you should be able to give and take away when ever you want to.