Choke

We had quite a scare the Friday night.  Chip, our favorite boy whose picture is at the top right of this page, started choking on his food pellets.  The question was - what do we do?  One book said to massage the neck; another reference said to give him space because trying to "help" him would only make him more stressed and the throat would close up even more.  We couldn't just stand by and watch, so we massaged the neck off and on for about 20 minutes and it seemed to help.  After about 45 minutes, he was back to normal. 

The after effects of choke can be worse than the event itself.  If any of the food gets into the lungs, pneumonia can result.  As a precaution, we took him to the vet Saturday and got antibiotics, which have to be given in a shot every day.  That turned out to be a wrestling match for all 3 of us today.  We finally got the shot in him, but we've got to find a better way to do it. 

To prevent future choke episodes, we bought shallow pans so that each boy will have his own dish and won't have to try and gobble the pellets before someone else noses in.