This morning I am lying in bed. My husband was already up but I was trying to sleep in (it was about 7:00 a.m...not really sleeping in by much, lol). He'd let our three dogs out into the fenced yard when he got out of bed. So I am laying there hoping to fall back to sleep when I hear the dogs crying and going at it. I thought our oldest (arthritic grouchy husky) was going after our middle dog (Roxi). I go running to the back door and see Roxi and our littlest one (Trixie) going at it (or so I think). They're best buddies! Roxi looks like she has Trixie's throat in her mouth and they're crying/growling and flipping all over the place. I go running out and yell at Roxi to let her go.
Then as I look closer, it looks like Roxi's mouth is actually STUCK on Trixie's neck. So, the kids and hubby are out on the deck yelling at Roxi to let Trixie go (they think they're fighting too), I yell up to him on the deck that I think Roxi's tooth is stuck in the collar. He comes running down and is struggling to get the collar off Trixie before it kills her. It's still a bit dark and it's hard to see. By that time, I am talking quietly to Roxi to quiet her down so she stops struggling and hubby is frantically searching for the clasp on Trixie's collar. By that point, Roxi trusts us to fix it (or is just plain petrified as she knows something is wrong with her little dog friend) so Roxi's curled up as still as can be but Trixie has stopped struggling and is no longer crying. She's passed out and her collar is still twisted and stuck in our other dog's tooth. All her oxygen is cut off and she's dying. It was horrible. DH can't get to the clasp the way the dogs are twisted but gets Roxi's tooth out of the collar and he lays Trixie back on the ground, where she lies without movement. Trixie is totally still on the ground. I'm thinking to myself, OMG she's gone and all of our kids are here watching. DH says she's going into shock so I take off for a blanket while DH is trying to get her to move, telling her to breathe, rubbing her chest, moving her a bit trying to revive her. Then I hear him yell, "She's up. Her tail is wagging."
Talk about being so scared and then relieved to hear those words and see her up and breathing. My daughter is crying. She just lost her horse and Trixie is her dog. If she'd lost another pet...OMG. This all happened so quickly.
We bring the dogs in and Trixie immediately runs to her spot and lays down looking a little scared. We offer treats and she takes treats and then eats her breakfast with tail wagging. What a near death experience for our little dog. DH also checked Roxi's mouth to make sure her mouth is ok (she's ok).
The collar Trixie was wearing was one of those nylon collars from Wal-mart called SimplyDog Blue Bones Collar (see pic below). It is brown and blue nylon, but not just the basic nylon. It has a design covering on it (brown with blue bones on it) and there was a small separation where the stitches had come loose between that cloth covering part and the nylon collar - big enough for Roxi's tooth to get caught while they played as they usually do and as the dogs twisted to get away, it got wrapped around her tooth tightening on it, tying the dogs together and choking the life out of the puppy...literally. That collar won't be going on her again.
Of all the things I worry about with the dogs - getting deathly ill, getting out of the fence and getting hit by a car, I never would have thought that something like a another dog's tooth getting stuck in a collar could happen and kill a dog the way it almost did Trixie. She was just a couple seconds away from dying.
It was horrid. I don't know if I'll forget the way Trixie looked on the ground after hubby got her loose. There was no movement from her...she was literally almost dead. Another couple of seconds of her oxygen being cut-off and we would have been having a dog funeral today and consoling heartbroken kids.
I will never buy a collar like this again. Cute is cute but dead is dead. We almost lost a beloved child's pet. All it took was enough room for a tooth to slip into the brown/bones fabric covering of the nylon collar to get them caught and we almost had a tragedy.
SimplyDog Blue Bones Collar from Wal-Mart
Walmart No. 000893440Company Who Makes This Collar: SimplyShe.com/pets.htmlPlease send this post to all dog owners that you know. Stumble/Digg, etc. the post. It's important. It's not something I would have ever worried about before but one of those rare things that can happen.
UPDATED 11/8/08: I left two reviews at Wal-Mart's site for this product so other consumers would be aware of this. They have not posted either review as of this date. Funny how other people's reviews are there, including one posted AFTER my initial review, but neither of mine are there. It's a shame Wal-Mart would hide something like this.
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. He sells it in his office but at about triple the price so he told us to get it online. It works really good.
Jeffers Equine offers everything you need to take great care of your equine friends at a discount. Now I am off to shop for a breastplate to keep Rex's saddle from slipping.
