Big Paws Only Dog Forums
BPO Recommended Reading => Book Club & Noteworthy Reads => : MagicM3 August 12, 2006, 12:22:11 PM
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PLEASE CROSS POST
this one comes from a well respected Borzoi person,
and veterinarian, Elizabeth A Coney, DVM of Kentucky.
She wrote:
Now - for every one of you that has a home paper shredder with an
"auto on" feature, I want you to go turn it off and unplug the
paper shredder right now. Because night before last I was
presented with a paper shredder containing most of the tongue, ripped
out by the base, and a very pretty sweet 1 1/2 year old lab cross
whose owners euthanized her.
She always watched the paper go into the shredder, she thought it
fascinating. The "auto on" feature means the shredder sits there
waiting for something to get placed into it. Like an inquisitive
tongue.
I told them, "Dogs can do fine without a tongue, they have to learn to
drink and eat differently", but the owners didn't want to go there.
The look in her eyes said, "I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't supposed to
do that, it's all my fault". We all cried.
I cried when I read this, myself. In subsequent posts Beth says she has
learned that dogs who have lost more than half their tongues *don't* do
as well as she had been taught. According to the veterinary literature
it is also possible for animals to be injured other places than
tongues
- a Basset
lost an ear, a long-haired cat most of the skin on its side, a
kitten a foot, > etc.
She didn't mention any human injuries, but I can't imagine that a
toddler would be immune from either curiosity or injury.
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The auto is off on mine.
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OMG! That's horrible! Luckily we don't have one but I've worked with industrial shredders and they're definitely dangerous.
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That's horrible. Mine is kept off but still plugged in. I'm going to start unplugging it now also.
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Mine stays unplugged. I had visions of Baloo and all that hair... Or a dane ear... This is horrible. I really feel for the family.