My chow-lab mix ate a corn cob. Anything I can do to avoid surgery? [duplicate]

Question

The other day I went to my neighbors get together and took my 9 month old chow lab puppy with me. Towards the end I heard he had eaten a corn cob offered to him as a chew thing whole. Just scarfed it down. He's a 40.6 lbs medium size dog by now and all day after and all day today he was fine and bouncing around as normal. Per caution I've been palpating his belly to make sure it won't hard or anything that might be a blockage. His bellys soft and gives normally and he don't whine nor snap or anything I'd usually expect a dog to do in pain. He even ate both a chicken and rice bowl I threw out and a meat patty I gave him as a treat plus his own kibble.

But it went to check on him before bed and he acts off, hunched on the back and sits when I bring him out of his pen to take a good look at him. Same thing, soft belly no hard spots and no signs of pain. I gave him plenty of water and his food and he acted happy to get them as usual and both drank and ate with no throwing up. I'm really nervous as he was a gift from my boyfriend and I love him to death. I don't want anything to happen to my baby.

Is there anything I can do for him?

Answer 1

Probably always the best advice in such situations: If you're unsure, ask your vet. Just call them. The dog ate that thing already, the call won't change this situation. Your dog isn't Schroedinger's Cat after all. :)

As for your actual problem, it's hard to judge just from reading your question.

This really depends a lot on the size of your dog and also the size of the corn cob we're talking about. Dogs' gastric acid is really strong and made to disolve hard things like bones. I could imagine it having no issue with bits of the corn cob.

Despite your dog being rather big already, I wouldn't expect it to swallow the cob just in one piece. Add to this that the cob was most likely not raw (boiled? grilled?), I could imagine that the dog will be just fine, digesting it partially and/or puking it out again.

From my experience, if dogs eat something they can't digest, it should come out of either end, depending on its size. There can be issues, especially if the foreign bodies are acid resistent (some plastics, metal, glass(!), etc.) or if they might get stuck (huge pieces of wood).

Just keep an eye on your dog. If it continues eating, poops as usual, etc. then I wouldn't worry too much about it. But again, if you want to be 100% sure, ask your vet.