Snippet: Burying the Chew

SUMMARY: Human Mom does not approve.

Usually when I give my dogs a chew of some sort (e.g., a bully stick or Greenie), they carry it somewhere comfy and make short work of it with their scary pointy teeth--probably their scary hard molars really. For Tika, the back lawn suited her preferences. For Zorro, it's usually the comfy couch in the living room (it is covered) or somewhere in my office, depending on where I've plonked myself.

A couple of weeks ago, Zorro tried to hide his chew treat in a hole under a tunnel. I stood there, right next to him, watching, issuing polemics. I said accusingly, "I'm not going to leave it there," and "I'll pull it out as soon as you're done," and "Please don't bury that. I hate when you do that." 

But he did it anyway.*

He used to be more concerned about me watching.
From 2017: He trotted out to the yard with this king of all rawhides and started poking around in various places (under shrubs, behind trees,had to be just the right place).
I watched through the kitchen window. As he trotted across the back Back 40, suddenly he noticed me and froze.
Then hurriedly vanished into a part of the yard where I couldn't see him.  Fortunately ginormous treats are easily found, even in a hole cleverly covered with leaves.

Dug a fairly substantial hole, then used his nose to push the dirt back in on top of it. When done, he stood up with his snout covered with dirt and trotted toward the house as if expecting me to follow. Stopped and looked over his shoulder. Came rushing back, greatly concerned, because I had already bent over and started pulling it out.  

Went back into the house, gave it back to him, and this time he chewed it up.

The main issue with dogs hiding them is that I attach a vise grip to the treats so they won't choke on the large final piece. Vise grips aren't always cheap, and I have a terrible time finding really small ones.  I hate losing them. Tika would just leave it on the lawn when she was done...

...and since they usually got the chews in the evening, I'd tell myself confidently that I'd find it in the morning. Then, either I'd forget or it would hide. Once they've been in the ground for a while, especially during rainy season or when I'm irrigating, they cleverly turn themselves into metal to be recycled. As these two Vanna photos demonstrate.

-----

* didn't have my camera. Dang. 

P.S. This started as a snippet. But I just can't stop! Ever!

P.P.S. to self: Do I seriously have no photos of Zorro burying something? No photos of him with treats with vise grips? Time to get busy with the camera.

Vise Grip Vices

SUMMARY: Saving dogs from choking. Maybe.

I put vise grips on rawhides and bully sticks and other larger chews to keep dogs from choking on the last pieces. [I swear that I have explained this, with photos, multiple times, but it doesn't seem to be in my blog anywhere. And only a couple of quick mentions in Facebook that I can find. So--now here is a post!]

[On FB: Jan 22, 2016, 8:57 AM: Ellen Levy Finch commented on her own post.

Large bully sticks (long and thick) with a vise grip firmly clamped in the middle is the best bet so far.]

[my FB post Jan 23, 2016, 9:18 AM:   Don't you hate it when the dog gets down to the last 3 or 4 inches of a bully or rawhide or whatever and gnaws it until it's softish and then starts to swallow and gags it back up, repeat? Used to worry me. Then I discovered vise grips. (Doesn't this sound like an infomercial?) I believe that Sarah George Johnson (or Holly Newman?) came up with this idea. [[Correction from comment below-- Mike Scannell's idea! (attn: Cheri Scannell )]]  (All of whom are long-time agility friends.)

Three benefits--two to me: Dogs no longer hork on the last bit and also it usually takes them a long time to work on the last bit left in the grip (assuming that you fastened it tightly enough); one benefit to the dogs: They use it as another handle while chewing! Tika and Boost demonstrated back in 2012.]

After it has been chewed on for a while

[On FB Jan 23, 2016, 9:15 PM: Ellen Levy Finch replied to Cheri Scannell's comment.

I wouldn't use clamps that, if the dog gets the bully stick out, would clamp down on the dog's tongue. That's why I like the vise grips. Even if the last bit comes out, they won't close on dog.]

[On FB Jan 23, 2016, 9:18 PM: Ellen Levy Finch commented on her own post.
I like the vise grips because (a) if the dog does get any part of the bully out, they won't clamp down on the dog's tongue, (b) they're not too heavyweight, (c) the dog can't chew them up (the vise grips), and (d), if you tighten them enough, the dog isn't going to get a big chunk of bully at the end--you just have to really get the screw so tight that you can barely close it using a lot of strength. ]

[FB May 2, 2017, 9:19 AM : Ellen Levy Finch commented on Peggy Clark's post.

What has always entertained me is that the dogs then use the vise grip as a second handle on the chew! Here's Tika, for example. 

]

[FB May 24, 2019, 5:41 PM : Ellen Levy Finch commented on Leslie May's photo.

Yep, that's why my dogs get "clampy things" on their chews. Hope he feels all better.]

[from FB May 24, 2019, 5:52 PM   Ellen Levy Finch replied to her own comment.: I thought I had done a Taj MuttHall post on this--but it must've been on Facebook, I guess. I use small vise grips and the dogs have, all of them, used them as a handy handle to help get some good chewin' in! It doesn't solve them somehow chewing off a huge chunk, but it does prevent swallowing the last big chunk.

Boost photo (taken May 25 '12):  

 

[FB Jan 11, 2020, 11:10 AM : Ellen Levy Finch commented on Ellen Clary's post.

This is why I clamp most chew treats with a vise grip in the middle.  
Glad she's fine.]

[Email w/sis Aug 30, 2020 -- 

From her to me:

    Can you send me a photo of the “clamp on a bully stick” thing.. so I can see where on the stick you clamp it, and why you clamp it? Dog just eats around whatever we clamp on it...

From me to her: Here are images: 

    Yes, they do chew around it— my goal is to avoid them trying to swallow the whole last 3-5” piece when I’m not using the vice grips. My pups have always chewed down from each end to the clamp, and then there’s a small bit left in the clamp that I can just toss or give to them depending on my mood.…and if that’s the only photo that I have of Chip with his clamped bully, I will be sad indeed.

Meanwhile--what if someone [ahem, TIKA!] leaves one out on the lawn and Human Mom can't find it?
Read https://dogblog.finchester.org/2020/12/vise-grips-past-imperfect-and-future-to.html

Vise grips past imperfect and future-to-present feeling tense

SUMMARY: Finding what was lost, but perhaps a little late.

I put vise grips on rawhides and bully sticks and other larger chews to keep dogs from choking on the last pieces. (Read https://dogblog.finchester.org/2020/12/vise-grip-vices.html .)

Tika always used to take hers out to the lawn next to the deck, and a couple of times I couldn't find the grips afterwards. And then I never did find all of them.

Because the grips sometimes go walkabout for a little while anyway-- I had more than just a couple.

I started out with 7 [vise grips] that I bought specifically for this. I'm now down to 2 functional, another very rusty that I finally found in the grass... and who knows where the others ended up. 

[From FB Dec 13, 2015, 4:23 PM: The mystery object--any idea?

With Ellen C's Knee for scale. We (mostly she) had been digging by hand.

Here's the story: I thought that Luke likely buried a vise grip that held a large rawhide. Haven't found it by poking around. (He had it in the living room, then went outside, then back in, etc a few times, then he suddenly no longer had it.)  

Thus it came that I invited Ellen Clary to bring her metal detector and help me look for it. For some reason she thought that would be a great idea. So there we were, scanning the yard (found a nail! And a teensy round washer!) and discovering that there's metal EVERYWHERE (sprinkler heads, dogwalks, fencing, pipes, etc.) in the areas that I think are likely burying areas.  

So she scanned around in the center of the yard (which has been greatly enhanced by additional canine development work). Got a strong beep. Dug down a little. The beep changed location a little. Dug off the the side a little. Beep changed location. Dug off to the side a little. 

I joked that, the way it was going, we'd have a hole 5 feet across and 3 feet deep in the middle of my once and future lawn.

Anyway--with Ellen doing almost all the digging while I yelled encouragement such as "I see another dog poop over in the corner; going to go scoop that up," we ended up with a hole verging on 5 feet across and 3 feet deep. Well, perhaps 3 feet across and a foot deep.  

And we found the edge of a Thing, and the ground around/under it fell away in places as if there had been empty space, or something else around it that had decayed away. Seemed to be chunks of rocks and concrete under and around it. Metal, rusting, large circular--

It's hard clay, so not the easiest stuff to dig, and I truly didn't WANT a hole 5 feet wide in my yard at this time, so we closed it up and left it as an exercise for a warmer and sunnier day.

We speculated that it might be a very large metal pail or basin or firepit (although didn't see signs of ashes as far as we went) and not sure how deep it is or otherwise shaped, since we just have the edge. Anyone have any ideas? (This land was farmland before the house was built in 1970, but the house's previous, original owner had done quite a bit of digging and installing stuff, also.)

While we were at it, I also took the detector and used it around the lawn areas where Tika used to lie, looking for grips that she might have lost in the lawn. Nuthin'. Anyway, never did find any vise grips that day.
]

[FB comments on my post of JtmeandnSuapnsrnonusyo re23l, dlu2gm01dc6  ·Ellen Levy Finch

Ellen Clary

 even came down with her metal detector to help me look, but we were thwarted by the fact that there is metal *everywhere* in my yard. So, yeh, someday maybe they'll reappear!

[UPDATE ON  Facebook,Jun 8, 2016, 9:16 PM -- 

Well, surprise, surprise! Found today: This was one of the the things I was hoping to find with Ellen Clary's metal detector, which she came to visit with. Except that this was about 5 feet beyond the area where I had expected Tika to have been lying, way back when, and therefore where I ran the detector.

Vise grip is at bottom of photo below crook of stick. 
For Tika's losses, I ran the metal detector from the vicinity of Chip and closer to the house.

I'd been looking for this for a long time. Suddenly it emerged, nestled among roots of grass.

I'm guessing that this one isn't salvageable even with a little WD-40.

UPDATE on FB Mar 26, 2020, 5:19 PM!
Hey,

Ellen Clary

: Found another one. In exactly the same place that the others have gradually been reappearing. It is so odd that we couldn’t find them with the metal detector. They might’ve been buried under grass roots at the time. And of course every time they come through with the blower week after week after week it’s blowing away some of the soil on top.

[FB: My response to a comment on my post asking what it was: Rusty old vise grips that Tika left on the lawn and I didn't pick up right away and then couldn't find.]