What Can You Do If Your Dog Eats Play-Doh? Easy Tips!
There are some people asking, what to do when a dog at home accidentally eats Play-Doh or What Can You Do If Your Dog Eats Play-Doh?
With attractive colors and textures, sometimes the Dog in the House mistakes Play-Doh for food.
The substance that is quite dangerous in Play-Doh is the high salt content. If a dog consumes too much salt it can cause kidney damage and side effects such as nausea, vomiting, difficulty breathing, and other chronic problems.
Play-Doh is a modeling clay that has a soft texture and color. Generally made from a mixture of water, salt, flour, and dye. This toy becomes interesting because children can experiment to form certain patterns and characters.
Children play with Play-Doh in almost every corner of the house and sometimes don’t clean it up after playing. Most likely the Dog will try to eat the scattered Play-Doh. So, if the Dog at Home already eats Play-Doh, what can I do to make sure it’s still okay? Come on, read more to get the answer!
What Should I Do If My Dog Eats Play-Doh?
Quoting from wagwalking.com, sodium chloride (salt) is an electrolyte that regulates body water levels, nerve impulses, and muscle contractions. Excessive salt levels will destroy brain cells and kidneys. The accumulated fluid will make the Dog lethargic, lose appetite, have difficulty breathing, convulsions, and coma.
In many cases, the above conditions rarely occur especially if the Dog only consumes Play-Doh in small amounts. However, it all depends on the size, age, and breed of the dog.
So, after your Dog accidentally eats Play-Doh and simultaneously shows unusual symptoms, then what you should do is:
1. Identify how much Play-Doh was accidentally eaten
2. Help expel the ingested Play-Doh with hydrogen peroxide
3. Continue to monitor your dog’s condition if the second method doesn’t work
4. If it seems to be getting worse, then contact the veterinarian immediately
5. Follow the doctor’s advice!
Most importantly when you feel worried about the condition of your dog, do not hesitate to take him to the vet immediately. That is the most appropriate way than you have to handle it yourself at home.
Will Eating Play-Doh Hurt a Dog?
In general, Play-Doh on the market has a basic mixture of water, salt, and flour, and sometimes there is an addition of cream of tartar. These materials actually have a low risk if accidentally swallowed by a dog.
In some cases, Dogs who accidentally eat Play-Doh are still doing fine. Maybe in a few cases, it will have a harmful effect and can hurt the dog if consumed in large quantities.
Obviously, excess salt content will be toxic to the dog’s body. Excess salt will have serious consequences on impaired kidney and brain function.
As previously explained, excess sodium chloride (salt) can cause disturbances such as lethargy, nausea, vomiting, difficulty breathing, and worse, coma due to brain and nerve function failure.
Furthermore, what you really need to watch out for is when you buy Play-Doh on the market. Some Play-Doh products available in the Store today generally have chemical additives in them. For example, there are manufacturers who add kerosene, borax, aluminum sulfate, and others.
With this additional mixture, the level of risk will be greater for your pet if it accidentally consumes Play-Doh Toys. If consumed in large quantities, it will cause severe kidney damage.
It’s better, instead of having to buy Play-Doh in the market for your child’s play, it would be better to make Play-Doh yourself. By making your own, you can choose and adjust the mixture contained to keep it safe if accidentally swallowed by your pet or child at home.
Here are some safe mixes for making your own Play-Doh (no salt) inspired by kidactivitieswithalexa.com:
Ingredients:
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tablespoon cream of tartar
- 1 tablespoon canola oil (you can use other types)
- 3/4 cup warm water
- Food coloring
Method:
- Heat 3/4 cup of water
- Put the other ingredients except the food coloring in the food bowl
- Mix all dry ingredients evenly
- Add food coloring to hot water and stir
- Add colored water to a bowl of dry dough
- Stir gently until the water has absorbed all and the dough becomes soft
- Place the dough on a tray and then knead until all the flour is absorbed.
The recipe above is a composition without the use of salt. Cream of tartar is a substitute for salt (as a preservative). If you don’t have cream of tartar, you can also use a moderate amount of vinegar.
Of course, by making your own Play-Doh, all the risks you are worried about for your Children and Dogs can be minimized.
Can Play-Doh be digested?
Naturally, Play-Doh that has been swallowed into the dog’s stomach can be digested properly. Sodium, flour, and the dye will come out through the digestive tract.
Important things to note are related to the age of the Dog and the amount of Play-Doh accidentally ingested. For adult dogs or breeds such as Boxers and Great Danes, the incident of swallowing Play-Doh may not be a big problem. This is because the digestive system is better prepared with all kinds of substances.
If your dog is still small, especially breeds like the Teacup Chihuahua, Pomeranian, and the like, then it can be a big problem to accidentally swallow Play-Doh. We recommend that you need to pay special attention to them, especially if the Play-Doh level is consumed in large quantities.
If your dog becomes very thirsty, shaky, lethargic, vomits, has diarrhea and loses appetite, then contact your veterinarian immediately for proper treatment.
For those of you who have small children at home and lots of artificial toys like Play-Doh scattered all over the house. Here are some tips for anticipating incidents of your Dog ingesting Play-Doh in the future, so you should take some preventive measures.
1. If possible Make your own Play-Doh with a safe composition.
2. Separate Dogs into their own room/cage if your children are playing Play-Doh and the like.
3. After your child plays with the toy, try to immediately clean it up / put it in a safe place.
4. Always have emergency medicines for your dog including Hydrogen Peroxide for first aid.
Lastly, having Kids and Dogs at Home sometimes requires extra effort in managing and controlling to make sure everything stays safe. Therefore, you need to take preventive measures as described previously.
In many cases, Dogs that ingest Play-Doh can stay safe and rarely experience harmful side effects. But staying vigilant and preventing it is better. That’s it, hopefully, it will be useful.
