While some of these items would be easy access to a critter that has a propensity to eat things, hopefully the owners of these critters learned to be more careful about access to things that can be swallowed.

We try. We do our best, but anyone who has met my old guy, Clue, might have to admit that some dogs are so determined that there isn't much that will keep them from their hearts delight. In Clue's case, it is food. The only foreign bodies he has consumed have been ancillary to the object of his desire, such as the tiny pieces of aluminum that turned up in his stomach after a bout of troublesome vomiting. A little detective work, and we decided that the aluminum came from the top of a microwaveable package of backed beans, one of those flimsy aluminum pop tops. He was, of course, after the beans, and my hubby mistakenly believed that this was a real can, and stored it under the sink. Oops. The tiny black pieces showed up on x-ray, and came out via lavage. I don't know where I put the long list of his "dietary indescretions", but it will turn up. He is almost 17 years old, and it is a miracle he survived that long, really. A partial list of things Clue has eaten - or in one case, got his head stuck in a pretzel vat, like a diver's bell, or an astronaut's helmet: a gallon bottle of olive oil, shared on the dining room carpet with the other dog, who must have marveled at Clue's ability to unscrew a heavy duty bottle cap; the ENTIRE Christmas ham, shared with the same buddy, neither came down with pancreatitis; the rib cage of a Thanksgiving turkey deposited in the yard by crows that misjudged the weight, and dropped it on the way to their perch from the neighbor's garbage; most of the remains of an enormous Coho salmon, ripening in the beach sun (more than once, actually); paired with a similarly 'aged' carcass of a seagull; spaghetti sauce licked up from jars he knocked onto the cellar floor and broke (big worry that time, about glass shards); a large quantity of coffee grounds mixed up with rotten shrimp shells; an entire bag of blue menthol cough/throat lozenges (the air was 'menthol fresh' in the house for days); and the most interesting thing of all, 8 packages of unpopped microwave popcorn, which happened in winter, leaving piles of corn kernels frozen into the snow. I could go on, about the chocolate scares, the fat and grease worries, the photo that circled the world on the internet of Clue with his head stuck in a commercial sized plastic vat that still had a little pretzel dust in the bottom, apparently. I used to keep a large bottle of hydrogen peroxide handy in the hall closet, most of these episodes never got to the vet's office, thanks to peroxide's effect. Whenever I call my vet she would say "what did he get into NOW!?!?!?" before I could say why I was calling. Now that he is very old and quite frail, we don't have a lot to worry about. Soon we will have to say goodbye, this old dog is going to make us make 'that' decision, darn it. Tough as nails, this old boy.

But for trying to prevent these things, well, each new disaster was a chance to say "we never thought of THAT." Our garbage is kept in a bag that hangs from our casement window latch over the sink in the kitchen. Martha Stewart would not approve. But there were a lot of evolutions in garbage storage in the past 16 years, and this one was the only thing that worked. We have to wash all of our recylcelables in the dishwasher, unless we take them right out to the bin, otherwise Clue would attempt repeatedly to get the cans or bottles if they had food in them originally. Or were stored next to food, looked like food, or had a picture of food on the label . . . He tried to open cans of salmon pretty often, with his teeth. Child latches were only a deterrent, causing him to try to chew through cabinet doors if it wouldn't open, so all canned and bottled food items were stored in the basement.

In spite of all this, I'm going to miss that old dog, he was an amazing search and recovery dog, locating missing people for grieving families as a human remains detection dog. His reward for a job well done? FOOD, naturally.

I can't find the picture of Clue with the plastic container on his head on the Internet! Can you link to it?

@ vheuer - I can't find it either. I have it filed as a jpeg, but there I don't think I can send the pic to this blog.

Just so you know, I had to say goodbye to Clue on Wednesday night. He was ready to leave. When he stopped eating on Tuesday, we knew his time with us was done, he was telling us that it was ok. He let me cuddle him all day (never was much of a cuddle dog) Wednesday, and while I held him in my arms for Dr. Marty's loving hands, he gave me a little kiss on my chin.

I'm looking through old pictures - if I figure out how to share the pic of Clue's astronaut impression, I will.

He was an extraordinary dog, for many, many reasons. He passed his AKC tracking test at age 10. He passed two certification tests, two different police agencies, as a human remains detector dog when he was 11. He took less than 6 minutes to locate a buried scent source in an acre of restored prairie in 90 degree heat. That same day we had to pull our young black Lab and border collie off due to excessive panting, and they got to run the test in the cool of the morning. He was TEN and ELEVEN when he passed his last cert tests! So no one can convince me that a PBGV is too small to be an effective SAR detector dog.

My mother's dachshund had a propensity for eating things (and also for vet visits for same).
At various times,despite careful policing of her environment she ate --- a 2-lb. box of chocolate-covered cherries (with attendant gastric lavage & activated charcoal treatment); an entire set of 4 rattan placemats (vomited/passed without intervention); 2 pairs of panty-hose (vomited); and a dish towel (surgical intervention required).
She also had a special love for my dad's underwear, and ate a hole through a wicker hamper to get to them...no matter how careful you think you are, some dogs will find a way to get to the inedible.

They eat any thing Pine, they see me and start running. The back yard is a big salad bowl...so far Thank-God the little Nuts have not been sick. No toys the eat them too.

Our merry trio -

3x3 section of carpet; 6" circle of sheetrock; a leather sofa; a regular sofa; a maple sapling; all the trim on the back of the house; a rose bush (twice - it dared to grow back!); a jar of peanut butter accompanied by a 5 lb sack of flour (on the living room carpet); and a 1 lb bag of bird seed(we felt like we had discovered a new way of seeding the back yard!). Needless to say, we have baby locks on our upper kitchen cupboards in addition to the pantry door!

This is in addition to several pair of flip flops (not all matching)the cat's bed, and numerous plastic bowls. They even ate my rubber grapes, which I found decorating the back yard the next day.

Fortunately, they've always been able to yak up or pass everything. Needless to say, we have baby locks on our upper kitchen cupboards in addition to the pantry door!

Gotta love 'em!

My best friend's cat, Pepper, ate 2 pennies. Yes, a cat can eat werid things too!! She started to vomit and was hunched over. X-rays revealed coins trying to pass into her intestines. Once the vets realized it was 2 pennies, they prayed the pennies were pre-1982, because pennies were made with all copper then, and zinc is toxic to cats when sitting in their stomach. All went well, however. 2 pre-1982 pennies were removed.