# Chewing gum



## newowner (May 8, 2007)

Hi there.... can anyone comment on the effect of dogs eating gum? We live right next to a park, and walk our dog there everyday. He's become really good about fishing out gum from the ground, and there seems to be lots of gum out there--feels like he's able to find at least a piece a day! Of course, I can't get him to willingly give up the gum, so I always have to dig it out of his mouth, and I've gotten pretty good at this myself too. But there've been at least a couple of times where he was quicker than me. I'm just wondering what harm this can cause. Do they just pass it like humans do?


----------



## RonE (Feb 3, 2007)

I'd try to avoid excessive quantities but it seems likely that small amounts of gum will go in one end and come out the other relatively unchanged.

I'm going to think about that next time someone offers me a piece of gum.


----------



## Lightwingcreations (May 7, 2007)

The one thing I can think of that would be dangerous is if the gum had Xyletol in it as it is toxic to dogs, and fatal if in high enough quantities. You might want to teach your dog the "leave it" command so that if he looks like he is nosing around to grab some gum you can give him the command to back off. I've added a link to an article on xylitol, good luck.

http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer?pagename=press_082106


----------



## threedognite (Feb 10, 2007)

Dogs have a high acid content in their stomach and can easily digest things you wouldn't think they could such as tree branches, pieces of bark and things like that. You are doing the right thing to remove the gum from your dog's mouth and anything else he picks up. Food left on the ground usually contains bacteria and could make your dog ill so just watch her carefully and continue taking the gum out of her mouth. She likes it because it has sugar in it.


----------



## newowner (May 8, 2007)

Yeah, I figured gum can't be good for them but wondered just how bad it was. Some of the pieces I've pulled out were really gross with dirt and grass stuck to it! We haven't been able to teach him to leave things so we'll definitely try to work on that more. Now whenever we see him spending more than a few seconds sniffing at the same spot we just distract him and get him to move to a new spot.


----------



## Ginny01OT (Dec 3, 2006)

The ingredient lightwingcreations is referring to is found in sugar free gums and other sugar free foods as a sugar substitute so it is not only sugar free gum you have to be careful of but sugar free foods that may use this as a sugar substitute as well (say that three times fast)


----------



## threedognite (Feb 10, 2007)

I had no idea about the Xylitol being toxic to dogs. We don't chew gum and I haven't noticed any on the streets where I walk my dogs. Good thing to know though. Thanks for the info.


----------

