We all know that dogs are very curious and active creatures in nature. This triggers them to eat, lick or chew the materials which they easily find on their pathway.
This can cause some major issues since dogs aren’t aware of what they can eat. Consumption of some materials can cause serious health complications in dogs. One such thing to which your dog gets tempted to taste is aluminum, foil in an attempt to eat your barbecued franks and hamburgers inside the foil.
Here is the thing that you should do if you see that your dog ate aluminum foil.
What happens if a dog eats aluminum foil?
Aluminum foil contains aluminum composite that contains about 92 to 99 percent of aluminum. It is typically 0.00017 to 0.0059 inches thick.
Your dogs could digest aluminum without issues if they ate it in a very small quantity. There will be complications only if your dog ate a lot of aluminum foil. If the size of the foil is huge or the size of the dog is small, then it may cause below health risks to your doggie.
ASPCA has mentioned some of the risks of placing aluminum foil or plastics around the dogs.
1. Choking risk
Aluminum doesn’t get softer when eaten and really becomes harder when it gets crumpled. That is the reason it can undoubtedly cause a blockage in your dog’s throat if they attempt to swallow it.
Puppies or small dogs are especially more prone to this because even a tiny bit of foil could choke them. It tends to be difficult to dislodge the foil material in a dog’s throat whenever it is trapped.
2. Food contamination
The most widely known risk identified with aluminum ingestion is the food that was wrapped in it.
A few food varieties like chocolate and garlic are poisonous to dogs. However, the leftover chocolate or garlic on the wrapping foil shouldn’t be sufficient to cause issues. Whereas the high toxicity of theobromine (in chocolate) and thiosulfate (in garlic) in that leftover food material might cause various health hazards.
Aluminum foil that is utilized as wrapping for meat is unsafe for dogs. Pork rib bones, for instance, are full of fat and they may cause serious issues in your dog’s stomach and digestive organs.
3. Gastrointestinal hazards
The acids in a dog’s stomach are stronger than human. However, it can barely process enormous or heavy aluminum foil. This can cause a few gastrointestinal issues like blockage or gastritis.
However, this possibly happens when your dog has ingested a huge piece of foil, like a crumpled ball. Smaller pieces can clear their path through the stomach of bigger dogs similarly without any problem.
Intestinal blockage is more dangerous for puppies because their digestion tracts are smaller. A dog with a blockage in the digestive organs won’t eat and poop normally. This is a condition that could be not entirely obvious at the start yet can cause serious outcomes.
Another issue is gastritis, which is an irritation in stomach linings. It tends to be intense (which goes on for a longer time) or become constant.
4. Aluminum toxicity
Aluminum components like Aluminum chloride, Aluminum hydroxide, Aluminum Nitrate, Aluminum phosphate, Aluminum sulfate, Aluminum potassium, Aluminum ammonium sulfate, and Aluminum silicate are utilized in the making of aluminum foils.
The poisonous nature of Aluminum initiates immunologic alterations, genotoxicity, amyloidogenesis, apoptosis, necrosis, dysplasia, peptide denaturation or transformation, enzymatic dysfunction, membrane perturbation, iron dyshomeostasis, and metabolic derangement.
A study was made on Aluminum toxicity with 9 dogs of different varieties. Around there, the dogs were oppressed with different unexpected issues. These included ataxia, modified mentation, paraparesis, tetraparesis, diminished fringe reflexes, diminished papillary reaction, and tremors.
Symptoms to look out for if your dog swallowed aluminum foil:
- Repeated vomiting
- Difficulty relaxing
- Lethargic conduct that keeps going over a day
- Lack of hunger that keeps going over a day
- Constipation
- Whining in torment
- Severe bulging
- Panic or hyperactivity
- Signs of potential aluminum toxicity, like quakes, loss of equilibrium
What to do if the dog ate aluminum foil?
1. Inspect your dog’s behavior and condition
You should watch them for as long as 24 hours after they have ingested the tinfoil.
If your dog seems to have any difficulty (breathing quicker than usual, struggling to take a breath, has pale or blue-touched gums) or has all the earmarks of being choking or feeling awkward or uninterested in eating or drinking at that point go directly to a vet. If your dog is active and doesn’t seem to be in trouble then keep on checking the below points.
2. Try to reproduce the location of the incident
Often dogs will eat things like wax paper, material paper, aluminum or tin foil, or paper since it can be found easily on the actual food wrapping.
If your dog appears physically and mentally active, it’s an ideal opportunity to sort out what sort of foil they ate and the amount they ingested.
Attempt to recollect what had been wrapped in the foil, and if it had any food stuck on it. Start collecting the pieces left on the ground and dig through garbage or dustbin to know how much is left inside.
Did he eat the wrapping from a couple of Hershey’s Kisses or an aluminum foil used to wrap up for your Thanksgiving Turkey?
This will give you a better idea of how serious the situation is.
3. Check your dog poops for a few days
To confirm that the foil hasn’t made an intestinal blockage, you should check their poop as foil stays two or three days after they ate it.
Also, check how regularly your dog is pooping. If he keeps on eating, drink, poop, and act normal, he’s most likely fine. If you notice that your dog is pooping less than usual, you may have to get it checked by a vet for an intestinal blockage.
4. Induce Vomiting
You can attempt to make your dog vomit in order to safeguard him if he has eaten tinfoil.
The best method to get your dog to vomit is to give them a millimeter of three percent hydrogen peroxide for each pound of bodyweight. You can give it orally through either a needle or a spoon (whichever is simpler). It may be difficult to get your dog to consume this to vomit but try to feed this to your dog by mixing a small amount of lime water.
5. Go to the Vet
Your vet will probably begin by checking your pooch’s vitals and take a complete history of the incident that happened. The pet owner needs to know when the dog ate the foil, how much foil he consumed, and what is present inside the foil. The vet will ask about your dog’s symptoms, including when they began and their seriousness.
Your vet may take a blood test and ask for some X-rays to see precisely where the foil is. This will help the vet to know the severity of the complication. Sometimes, an endoscope (a long, adaptable camera embedded into your dog’s mouth or rectum) or ultrasound might be preferred over an X-ray.
If your dog is showing symptoms due to the substances present inside the foil. Your vet may recommend drugs to neutralize the impacts or feed enacted charcoal to help to absorb any chemicals present in your dog’s paunch.
Quite possibly they will give your dog laxatives to make them poop out the tinfoil easily. If the aluminum foil still seems to be hard to come out of the dog’s body then your vet may need to remove it physically under medical surgery.
The recommended diet for dogs that ate aluminum foil
Give a break for about 8-12 hours for feeding. Then feed your dog a little bit of bubbled chicken without bones and rice for every 6 hours up to the next 48 hours and check whether they’re eating as usual and not vomiting.
At that point, you can once again introduce their typical eating routine for the next 5-7 days. If symptoms are repeating throughout the span of a few days, a clinical assessment by the vet will be the best solution.
How to prevent dogs from eating aluminum foil?
Don’t leave the food items particularly wrapped by foil in places where your dogs can reach. For example, on the tables or on the kitchen counter.
Using a pet-secure dustbin is a decent option to decrease the chances of your dog eating aluminum foil. Supervising children closely when eating is a smart move, as they may drop food wrappings on the floor that your dog can get. In the event that your dog regularly eats unpalatable items without any motive, this might be a symptom of a clinical disorder known as pica and should be addressed by your vet.
Dogs have strong stomachs yet they are sensitive to changes in their eating routine. One wrong intake can be serious, and this is particularly the situation with non-eatable things like tinfoil.
You should always remember to remove the wrapping before offering food to your dog. Never leave any aluminum wrappers around them.
Credit: Photos by Jonathan Daniels on unsplash and Monicore on pixabay.
