Machine Got Your Tongue?

While I was waiting for Miss Phoebe to have her sutures removed last week, I paged through the June issue of Dog Fancy magazine. There was a story that caught my eye, if only because it came under the category of "gory but true."

It seems that a reader had written in with a caveat for owners of dogs and shredding machines. While this reader was actually on vacation, her curious dog managed to get his tongue caught in the blades of her shredding machine. It seems that when the dog licked it, the machine began to operate, thinking the tongue was a piece of paper.

Everything turned out all right for this dog but not without a fair amount of trauma, as you can well imagine. The dog actually bit through his tongue to release it from the blades and lived to tell the tale.

According to the article, encounters between dogs and shredding machines are more common than you might imagine and not all turn out as well as the one in the magazine. Moral of the story: unplug your shredding machine when it is not in use or place it high enough so that your dog cannot touch it. Dare I say this is obvious advice for homes with toddlers as well.

You can bet, I ran home an unplugged ours, even though my dogs are actually scared of the machine. You never know when Sam might decide he is actually courageous!

Miss Phoebe, by the way, is back to her beautiful self and none the worse for the wear. All lumps were benign and she is ready for swimming season!