Vet speaks out on the hidden dangers to your dogs that arise in Autumn
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Mars was a big, fun-loving, three-year-old chocolate labrador who would eat almost anything in his path!
He was brought into the surgery after he had been caught red-handed eating tree-fall plums from the neighbour’s garden. Poor Mars had been very sick and he was in some obvious discomfort.
On examination, his abdomen was uncomfortable to palpate, and he was salivating and vomiting bile while in the consulting room. Mars was admitted immediately for hospitalisation, treatments and X-rays.
His X-rays quickly showed that he had an intestinal blockage, likely due to the offending plum stones. His owners were informed that he would need emergency surgery to remove the blockage.
The glorious autumn months bring an abundance of fruits. However, it is important for pet owners to know that some of these stoned fruits are extremely dangerous to dogs. It is not a good idea to let your dog eat fruit with stones, for example peaches, plums or nectarines, for a variety of reasons. Peach and plum pits and stones, from fruits of all types, can pose a potential hazard to your dog and should always be kept well out of their reach and discarded safely when you have finished eating them.
Fruit might seem like a very innocuous food, but the stones of certain types of fruits contain small quantities of cyanide within their kernels. If your dog chews and gnaws on a fruit stone, they might get right down to the kernel and ingest some of the dangerous centre. It is highly unlikely that eating the kernel from just one or two fruits would lead to the ingestion of enough cyanide to pose a hazard to your dog’s health, but it is much better to avoid the risk. Signs of cyanide toxicity include salivation, vomiting, rapid or difficulty breathing, and even convulsions and paralysis.
Also, if your dog scavenges or finds tree-fall fruit, it might be decaying, fermenting and growing mould, which can also cause an upset stomach, vomiting and diarrhoea if they eat it.
Fruit pits and stones can also be harmful for your dog’s teeth. Chewing and gnawing on these stones also runs the risk of cutting your dog’s tongue and gums, which can be painful, and create the right environment for an infection to set in.
Fruit stones are also the right sort of size and shape to pose a potential choking hazard because they can get stuck in the throat and block the airways. A choking dog will tend to panic and try to inhale, which serves to lodge a blockage even more firmly in your dog’s throat. Even cherry stones can potentially pose a choking hazard for some smaller dogs.
Fruit stones are very rough on the outside, which can graze the delicate lining of your dog’s oesophagus, and make them feel uncomfortable and reluctant to eat. If your dog crunches up and eats parts of a fruit stone, the splintered shards of it can cause internal damage, which may not become evident until the damage has already been done.
Even if your dog successfully manages to swallow a fruit stone whole, it may swell up and then be too large to pass through their digestive system naturally, this stone can then potentially cause a dangerous blockage.
Thankfully, Mars recovered well from his emergency surgery to remove the many plum stones – he had eaten all the plums that he possibly could whole, so he had not chewed into the poisonous plum stone kernels.
Alison Laurie-Chalmers is a senior consultant at Crown Vets in Inverness.
