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Just saw a 6-foot-5 man in tears at Banfield hospital in Petsmart because his dog swallowed AirTag

B

BlueMoose

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 23, 2019
242
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I was waiting for the vet at Banfield inside Petsmart. It's the first time since the pandemic began in December 2019 that my cat had been outside of the house. His shots are overdue.

Anyway...there were about 6 other people in front of me because I got there a little early.

All of a sudden, we all heard a man scream "where is the vet? my dog is in trouble and needs help" The man was probably 6-foot-5. (I'm 6 foot 2 myself and he was slightly taller than me. A Petsmart employ ran next to him and they got to the counter. The man was in tears like a 5-year-old boy.

Apparently his beagle(mix?) chewed through the fake leather cover of the AirTag and then swallowed the AirTag like it was a dog treat. The vet took the crying man and the dog inside. About 15 minutes later he came out with the dog. The vet gave him instructions to the local emergency animal hospital which I believe was only 20 minutes away. I sure hope the dog will be alright. :(

I actually thought about getting one for my cat a couple of weeks ago. Time to scratch that idea after seeing this today. :( If I didn't see it with my own eyes, it wouldn't have occurred to me that dogs(and possibly cats) might swallow the AirTags... :(
 
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Furzul said:
Would not have thought it would the dog anyway. Might make him squeak a bit when it came out.
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Ingesting a foreign object can rupture the bowel, stomach and other organs, not to mention preventing the animal from being able to evacuate, which can lead to kidney and liver failure quickly, depending on the size and age of the animal etc. If the battery gets punctured as it is being ingested, that creates problems as well.
 
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our beagle looses the tags on collars so often its hard to keep replacing them, at this point the medical ones they vet wont give us more so we try to keep a basic name w/ ph#
they get tagged on branches etc.

the dog is just so scent driven and curious and has broke serveral leashes, the biggest one being 100lb pull, the current 150lb has been ok so far 🤞
it would need to be part of the collar for me to consider or else when the dog goes darting into the bush that thing out get snagged and the dog will care less.

otherwise I dont feel need to track some random tree in the forest on our 5+ acres

I love the idea of the airtag for the dog though, Penny loves people and because its a beagle she's non threatening worse yet loves car rides, she regularly follows hikers and has even snuck in the car of the mailman twice and the meter maid once (nothing like getting a call from an town or two over asking who's dog this is and where to return them.
 
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Isn’t the chance of eating an AirTag about the same as their eating a license/identification? Or does the acrylic just taste better?

Someone now needs to come up with an AirTag safe collar, one this keeps it on the back of the neck.
 
Fortunately my dogs don't chew their collars ... or anything that isn't given to them to chew. This would be awful.
 
There’s a battery in that thing. The acids in the stomach will eat through it and release all sorts of chemicals that’s not good for any living creature. Hope they got it out.
 
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What relevance does being six foot five have to do with anything? I guess a man that size isn't allowed to cry when they think something they love might die. Luckily I'm shorter. So, it was okay that I wept over my cat after holding it while it was being put to sleep.

scaramoosh said:
Your Dog will poo it out, what's the problem?
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The Airtag itself probably isn't much of a problem. It's smooth and plastic. Will probably pass. The battery can cause severe burns most probably in the esophagus. Although it'll likely pass without incident too.

 
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Someone needs to teach the people at PetSmart. Salt. Need to get your dog to throw up, give them a bowl of salt. They'll keep licking until they throw up.

And, for those saying that the dog will just pass it - dogs can ingest larger objects than they can pass. We had a cocker spaniel that was awful for eating things she shouldn't (one was a "super ball" that was 2" in diameter) - each time, she got opened up because there was no way she was going to pass it.

Obviously, repeat performances are bad - it builds up scar tissue, opening your dog up like that.
 
Sad. I hope the pup makes it ok. I’ve got an ESR one on my dog and a Belkin one on the way. We definitely keep an eye on him when wearing it as we are afraid he might try and chew it. Eventually we want to get a collar with a pouch for the AirTag, or something like This. Both are just on pre-order but should be available soon.
 
fischersd said:
Someone needs to teach the people at PetSmart. Salt. Need to get your dog to throw up, give them a bowl of salt. They'll keep licking until they throw up.

And, for those saying that the dog will just pass it - dogs can ingest larger objects than they can pass. We had a cocker spaniel that was awful for eating things she shouldn't (one was a "super ball" that was 2" in diameter) - each time, she got opened up because there was no way she was going to pass it.

Obviously, repeat performances are bad - it builds up scar tissue, opening your dog up like that.
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Sometimes it can do more damage to vomit the foreign object than remove it thru surgery or other means. It is not a good idea to recommend inducing vomiting without knowing the facts of each case.
 
Apple_Robert said:
Putting an AirTag on a pet collar is not a wise thing to do.
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Hm. I'm not so sure about that. First of all, most pets cannot chew their own collar. That would truly defeat the purpose of them. Secondly, it's extremely common for collars to have things like nametags on them. Pets don't generally eat those. It's really unclear to me why a pet would try to eat a metal object.

But leaving all that aside, consider the relative risks and value. In my neighborhood, I get almost *daily* notifications on the Nextdoor app from people whose dog escaped and they're begging for help to find them. And that's just in my one neighborhood! So weighing the relative risk of your pet eating the AirTag against the potential benefit of being able to find them easily if they suddenly escaped...I think for many people this would be a very reasonable tradeoff and the benefit would vastly outweigh the risk.

That all said, it's just as easy (and cheaper in some ways) to do what my family does: Just put your phone number on the dog's collar tag, and have a very good wall or fence around your yard.

One final note: They never said the guy had the AirTag on his dog's collar. Just said he chewed through it. It seems much more likely to me that it was a keychain or something.
 
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DesertDrummer said:
Hm. I'm not so sure about that. First of all, most pets cannot chew their own collar. That would truly defeat the purpose of them. Secondly, it's extremely common for collars to have things like nametags on them. Pets don't generally eat those. It's really unclear to me why a pet would try to eat a metal object.

But leaving all that aside, consider the relative risks and value. In my neighborhood, I get almost *daily* notifications on the Nextdoor app from people whose dog escaped and they're begging for help to find them. And that's just in my one neighborhood! So weighing the relative risk of your pet eating the AirTag against the potential benefit of being able to find them easily if they suddenly escaped...I think for many people this would be a very reasonable tradeoff and the benefit would vastly outweigh the risk.

That all said, it's just as easy (and cheaper in some ways) to do what my family does: Just put your phone number on the dog's collar tag, and have a very good wall or fence around your yard.

One final note: They never said the guy had the AirTag on his dog's collar. Just said he chewed through it. It seems much more likely to me that it was a keychain or something.
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If the tag was dangling as may have been the case with the OP story, that would cause the pet to try and remove the collar and thereby tear up / eat the object in question. Even if the AirTag wasn't dangling from the collar, just having the extra bulk on the collar can be enough to make a pet seek to remove the friction they feel.
 
Apple_Robert said:
If the tag was dangling as may have been the case with the OP story, that would cause the pet to try and remove the collar and thereby tear up / eat the object in question. Even if the AirTag wasn't dangling from the collar, just having the extra bulk on the collar can be enough to make a pet seek to remove the friction they feel.
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Perhaps. But by this line of reasoning, you could just as easily say that nobody should keep an AirTag in a leather cover anywhere within reach of a pet, because the pet might decide to chew the leather and eat the AirTag (which is what I think may have happened in the OP post). Accidents are always gonna happen no matter what you do. I think this is an area where an individual pet owner just needs to assess the risks against the benefits for their situation.

(But as for us...I think we'll stick with the phone number collar.)
 
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Apple_Robert said:
Sometimes it can do more damage to vomit the foreign object than remove it thru surgery or other means. It is not a good idea to recommend inducing vomiting without knowing the facts of each case.
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True, but, generally speaking, it's better to get it out than risk blockage after the fact.

Edit: If you KNOW that your pet has eaten something that has sharp edges that could cause considerable internal damage, then you need to rush them to an emergency clinic.

And, yes, my Uncle that recommends getting a quick expulsion is a Vet - so I'll take his advice on this. :)
 
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BlueMoose said:
I was waiting for the vet at Banfield inside Petsmart. It's the first time since the pandemic began in December 2019 that my cat had been outside of the house. His shots are overdue.

Anyway...there were about 6 other people in front of me because I got there a little early.

All of a sudden, we all heard a man scream "where is the vet? my dog is in trouble and needs help" The man was probably 6-foot-5. (I'm 6 foot 2 myself and he was slightly taller than me. A Petsmart employ ran next to him and they got to the counter. The man was in tears like a 5-year-old boy.

Apparently his beagle(mix?) chewed through the fake leather cover of the AirTag and then swallowed the AirTag like it was a dog treat. The vet took the crying man and the dog inside. About 15 minutes later he came out with the dog. The vet gave him instructions to the local emergency animal hospital which I believe was only 20 minutes away. I sure hope the dog will be alright. :(

I actually thought about getting one for my cat a couple of weeks ago. Time to scratch that idea after seeing this today. :( If I didn't see it with my own eyes, it wouldn't have occurred to me that dogs(and possibly cats) might swallow the AirTags... :(
Click to expand...
Dang…the minute you said beagle I could relate. I have 2 beagles and while I love my dogs, they are so dumb and literally think with their nose first and will eat ANYTHING!

I hope it doesn’t dislodge in the stomach and comes out “peacefully” if you know what I mean!
 
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Joniz said:
Isn’t the chance of eating an AirTag about the same as their eating a license/identification? Or does the acrylic just taste better?

Someone now needs to come up with an AirTag safe collar, one this keeps it on the back of the neck.
Click to expand...
If the battery dislodges from the AirTag in the stomach…that’s really, really dangerous.
 
velocityg4 said:
What relevance does being six foot five have to do with anything? I guess a man that size isn't allowed to cry when they think something they love might die. Luckily I'm shorter. So, it was okay that I wept over my cat after holding it while it was being put to sleep.


The Airtag itself probably isn't much of a problem. It's smooth and plastic. Will probably pass. The battery can cause severe burns most probably in the esophagus. Although it'll likely pass without incident too.

Click to expand...
Right lol. its like men shouldn’t cry or feel sad. They should just develop an alcohol addiction and deal with their problems like real man of the good ole days. drink 3 six packs. (Please note my sarcasm these old ways of thinking s out how one should behave are pretty unhealthy).
 
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