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[Muttzrule]

Hello All,

I was just looking at all the lovely photos of dogs on here and noted that there are lots of pics of dogs playing with sticks. Just thought I would share with you some of the dangers of allowing your dog to play with sticks. As an emergency vet tech, we see several stick related injuries a year. Mostly impaling injuries.

Here is a website that talks about stick dangers.

Stick to toys

[Candy317]

I'm guessing your referring to my picture? I know of the dangers of sticks, and have seen pictures of punctured dogs, but with life everything has risks in them. Toys included have cause choking or how about dogs that swallow them whole?! Even using collars, unsupervised, a dog can choke on them or get strangled from getting stuck on an option, yet many pet owners leave them on their dogs unattended 24/7. With me its a pick and choose kinda thing. I don't do collars, especially having small dogs it can harm their trachea (sp?) but I allow them to play with sticks. However I always supervise them when they're playing with sticks. But they usually play chase and don't play with much with them anywho.

But it is good to know they risks and take them with caution, so thanks for the info/experience, it could be eye-openers to others who are not aware of the dangers!

[Muttzrule]

I wasn't referring specifically to your pictures, there were literally several posting in the photos section yesterday with stick pics, so just thought I'd t hrow it out there. I personally won't take the chance, when its just as easy to pick up a bumper or a ball and take that with me for fetching/playing. Its just so easy to prevent a stick injury.

[Labman]

There are a whole lot of things commonly used with dogs that are known to cause injuries. I would like to see some numbers on things like sticks, rawhide, bones, prong collars, ropes, getting carried off by hawks, etc. There are even those that neglect early socialization because of the danger of parvo. If it is 1 in 100, I wouldn't risk it, 1:1000, maybe, 1;10,000 likely would go ahead. I don't see how I can make an intelligent decision with the information I have. I am certainly not one of those dummies that will go ahead with something as long as none of my dogs have been hurt. Any one person can only have very limited experience in a life time. I am not going to depend solely on mine like so many.

[Carrie]

I've always let my dogs play with sticks and while I can see there are risks, so are there with a million other things. My dogs have been scratched and gouged by branches and sticks running in the woods on our hikes. One of my dogs ran right into a rail road tie in my yard because he was running, but looking the other way. Dork. He got mildly hurt....a bruise. If one is swinging a too big stick around, I'll take it and break it down smaller so it doesn't hit anyone. Toker will chew sticks into a lot of little pieces but she spits them out all over the lawn. The little dogs aren't into sticks. So, yes, it could cause an injury. But like it was said, so can a lot of dog toys, including balls. You just never know. Playing around in the woods can cause injury, but I'm not keeping my dogs in a glass bubble. I don't buy rawhide chews becuase they really scare me more for some reason. I think they taste better than sticks so the dogs chew them until they swallow them. It's hard to be paranoid about something when you've had dogs for 50 years and never had a bad accident with something they play with. My Lab once got a short piece of stick wedged between her back teeth, going cross wise. It was stuck and I had to pull it out. That could happen with a toy too. But other than that, nothing has ever happened. Obviously, it does sometimes. Those were some pretty freak accidents....awful things. But a lot of other things can cause injury too.

I guess you just have to weigh the pros and cons. If a dog of mine loves chewing on sticks, spits out the pieces, doesn't play too wildly with them, isn't racing around near other dogs, I'm not going to worry too much. Some boundaries are good....some limitations, but heck...dogs have always chewed sticks, probably for eons.