HELP! MY DOG JUST ATE A DRYER SHEET. WHAT TO DO?
We all know that dogs are curious creatures. They love to mess around in the house and eat anything they like, whenever they are bored or hungry. They even chew odd stuff like used dental floss, socks, a colorful toy, stones, or your favorite plant in the home garden within a minute you could stop them. The most hazardous thing they can gulp down is the dryer sheet from your laundry room which we consider a toxic rip-off.
Dogs love to eat everything that smells great, let’s say dryer sheets. Dryer sheets are made up of harmful material with strong toxic chemicals like benzalkonium chloride, chloroform, and cetrimonium bromide. As most of the dryer sheets contain cationic softener, they should be considered dangerous for our dogs. The presence of these hazardous chemicals in almost every fabric softener or detergent imposes a serious risk on dog’s life if they swallow dryer sheets. Even the minor exposure would be life-threatening in presence of these dangerous chemicals. They are most likely to irritate the skin, stomach lining, and mucus membrane. The dog might breathe heavily, cough, wheeze, or drool. In severe cases, it could lead to seizures, lung damage, ulcer, nervous system breakdown, and acute kidney disease.
Hey! Stay calm. No need to panic. Now, we will discuss what can you do if your dog ate a dryer sheet? Though we can’t take it easy if our dog has eaten a dryer sheet, we should try to remain calm in the first place and take necessary actions. For saving our dog’s life, we should immediately follow these steps:
Step 1: Properly Check The Signs of Indigestion:
Our vet would like to know whether our dog has eaten the dryer sheet? If yes, then his next question would be how much and how many sheets he has gulped down? So, it is important to properly check all the signs to take necessary actions. One more point we can consider here that whether the dog has swallowed a washed dryer sheet or an unused one. In both cases, the plan of action is different, as the situation and chemical ingestion are different as well.
Step 2: Do Not Attempt to Induce Vomiting Without Professional Support:
We should not try to induce vomiting in our choked dog. Some dog owners use hydrogen peroxide to induce vomiting at home, which is not recommended here. It could be very risky to do at home as it might block the esophagus of our dog, battling to come up but end up choking somewhere in the middle. It might come up but infecting their mouth once again with the harsh hazardous chemicals causing more risk to our dog’s life. So it’s better not to do it ourselves.
Step 3: Immediately Call Your Local Veteran Doctor:
An immediate call to our local veteran would be very helpful. We can either take our dog to their clinic or call them home. If we are going to the clinic, we should try to take the dryer sheets along so he can see the ingredients and treat our dog accordingly that what ingredients have been ingested in his body to start the treatment as soon as possible.
Deadly complications may occur in our dogs if we neglect them at an early stage. Our dog might face irritation as an early reaction, later it may develop into burns, stomach upset or poisoning, heavy breathing, etc. So vet services are needed here to combat all these symptoms and overcome these health issues.
Symptoms May Vary From Dog to Dog:
Clinical symptoms may vary from dog to dog. Every dog will respond differently to the toxic reaction of these dryer sheets. It may be for various reasons like:
• Dog’s weight
• Dog’s age
• Dog’s overall health
• Amount of dryer sheet swallowed
• Type of sheet swallowed; toxic or nontoxic
Suggested Treatments: What Should I DO?
Induce Vomit Under Vet Supervision:
Your vet might sort out some way to get your dog to vomit within two hours after swallowing dryer sheets. It is necessary to unclog the gastrointestinal tract of our dog and to avoid the health issues which will make us freak out in case we mishandled it. Lesser the time, least problematic it would be for your dog’s health.
Food Suggestions:
Here, we should try to give potatoes and boiled rice with chicken to our dog to speed up the GI tract clearance. This meal will hopefully help him recover faster and prevent any blockage by stimulating quick digestion.
Plenty of Water:
After our dog has swallowed the dryer sheet, we must serve him plenty of water to avoid choking and help him bypass the dryer sheet. Drinking plenty of water would be suggested for the dog’s survival to overcome and treat mild diarrhea and vomiting at home.
Restricted Activities and Exercise:
In the meanwhile, our dog is under treatment, we should restrict all his activities to observe his health condition. We should avoid taking him for long walks and heavy exercises session. If blockage prevails, it can cause discomfort in digestion leaving him in pain. It might cause death also if things will worsen here and are left untreated.
Proper Diagnosis:
We have to remain watchful for any symptoms that occur throughout the period. We should take serious measures in case our dog starts feeling sick and show these symptoms like vomiting, diarrhea, pain, loss of appetite, difficulty in excretion, and tenderness in the abdomen. Endoscopy or abdomen ultrasound will be advised here by the professional to further examine the severity of the condition. Gastrointestinal blockage sometimes becomes complicated and surgery is the last option left. In that condition, our dog would stay at the hospital until surgery and full recovery. Blood samples would also be taken to consider the number of white blood cells which boost the immune system and health condition of our dog.
Medication:
The proper medication would start if our dog will reveal the signs of inflammation and irritation. Dosage administration plays an important role here. Our dog would be given anti-inflammatory and antibiotic medicines as prescribed by the vet. We should keep our dog under observation for the next 48 to 72 hours so the dryer sheets pass through the digestive system of our dog and pass out in poop after a day or two.
No Access to Laundry Room:
Our laundry room is often full of harmful chemicals and cleaning products. We should take some extra measures to keep our dog out of the laundry room. He should not be able to enter it in our absence to avoid such a situation. It must be locked in our absence or we should double-check that the dog should not enter that room while we are doing our laundry inside.
Proper Disposal of Dryer Sheets:
Dryer sheets are made up of polyester and they are soaked in fabric softener. Proper disposal of dryer sheets is essential as they become light weighted and fluffy after just one wash which incites our lively sporty dogs to play with them. Hence, their proper disposal is necessary here and the owner should hide the unused dryer sheets in a safe place away from the dog.
Avoid Similar Incidents:
Once we have been through this trauma, we should learn from our past mistakes and focus on the future to avoid such mishaps again. We can avoid these mistakes by constant vigilance of our dog at all times. Preventing such incidents to reoccur will lead to both a calm happy dog and the owner.
Be an Informed Shopper:
Being dog owners, we are liable for our actions. When we go grocery shopping, we must keep in mind to buy such stuff that has nontoxic or less toxic substances, especially when buying dryer sheets. We can also go for all-natural organic products. We must read each package before our purchase to check the ingredients used in it. If a product we intend to buy is not labeled as nontoxic, it means that it involves any health risk for your dog or children in the household. Severity evaluation of such products is necessary to avoid such incidents again.
Conclusion:
At the end of this article, now we all understand that eating dryer sheets is not so risky and fatal, but our dog might have some health issues like anorexia, breathing difficulty, or pain that would take time to be treated and recover. When a dog eats the dryer sheets, it is a stressful time for both the owner and the dog but with time, both recover from this trauma. It is difficult to endure the pain at both ends but it increases the love for our pets. Hence, it is suggested here to follow all these steps in case your dog swallows the dryers sheets, and the next time, you should adhere to all the precautions we have mentioned here to keep your companion’s life safe.
