Ice Pack + Dog = Bad Idea

Today I would like to share with you how we spent part of our Super Bowl Sunday.

Did we attend a super rowdy party? Nope.

Am I going to share with you the amazing recipe we used to make mini-corn dogs?  Nope. (But you can find it here.)

I am going to tell you a story about how this cute face attacked an ice pack.

I get annoyed when people are like “Yeah, my dog ate “X”.”  Seriously people, pick up your crap so your dog can’t eat it. 

Karma gets me once again.

I iced my old lady hip, threw the ice pack on the floor, and started to write a blog post.  All of which I had been doing almost nightly for the past two weeks.

On this particular Super Bowl night, Ike decided to shred the ice pack.  Why? Because he was bored.  He’s not a football fan.  (And don’t send me hate mail.  We had taken him for a 1 hour walk earlier in the afternoon.  He gets plenty of exercise.)  I caught him after I heard a giant rip.  I thought it was his toy rabbit.  It wasn’t.  I immediately jumped up and grabbed the pack. It was ripped open but the majority of the contents were still in the bag. He generally doesn’t eat things.  Just shreds…but you never know.

I panic.  Are ice packs bad for dogs?  I’m sure they are.  Why didn’t I think of this 5 minutes ago when I tossed in on the ground?  I start Googling “dog eats ice pack”.  Because Google always has the answers.  Answers that include “My dog dies.”  “Dog dies.”  “Dog must got to emergency room within 1 hour to avoid kidney failure.”  I break into hysterics.  Nate is trying to be calm but I could tell he was extremely worried.  I make him call the vet because there is no way they would be able to under my hysterics.  “Dog. *sob* Ice pack. *sob* Dying.”

The vet takes almost 45 minutes to call back.  Usually they are very good but I guess they had trouble locating a vet that particular evening.  She recommends contacting Animal Poison Control.  She tells us that Animal Poison Control has the ingredients of most ice packs (which we could not find anywhere on the package or on-line). 

We call Animal Poison Control.  I didn’t know such a place existed.  They inform us of the $65 fee.  I DON’T CARE.  GIVE ME ANSWERS. (The fee ended up being waved because we have Ike micro-chipped through Home Again.)  They looked up the ingredients in the ice pack.  Luckily this brand contained only a small amount of propylene glycol which in small doses is not toxic to dogs (versus older packs that may contain ethylene glycol which is very toxic).  They recommend giving Ike a half slice of bread to soak up any of the propylene glycol in the case that he did ingest some. (They would have been more concerned if he ingested most of the contents.) We were to watch for any signs of vomiting or “drunkenness.”  Luckily he did not experience anything that we could tell. 

He was humping my leg while Nate was on the phone with poison control.  I fed him bread (which he loved because he very rarely gets human food).  Played with him.  Babied him.  Let him sleep in bed and kick me throughout the night. I also vowed never to leave an ice pack out…and spread the word so no one else does a dumb, dumb thing like I did.

What’s the worse thing your dog has eaten?