Protect Your Companion Animals From Plastic Bags
A Companion Animal Care Article from All-Creatures.org

This Companion Animal Care directory is presented to help people seeking reliable resources, tips, and information for companion animals.

FROM

Anne Mackey, Charlotte, North Carolina

In honor of our precious Ella's memory, I am crusading an effort to let everyone know that this can and does happen and hopefully I can save someone else from the same agonizing pain!

Our 9 month old Sheltie puppy, Ella, suffered a tragic, sudden, senseless death this past Friday. She suffocated to death on a bag liner that was inside a box of Cheez-It snack crackers. We were out for the evening and someone had left a box of Cheez-Its within Ella's reach. She put her head in the bag inside the box to get to the crackers. The bag came out of the box but she couldn't get the bag off of her head. We came home and found her dead from suffocation. It doesn't seem possible, that a dog couldn't get a bag off their head, but she didn’t.

I have since learned that this occurs more often than you would imagine. There was also a family whose six-year-old Labrador got hold of a Doritos bag when they weren't looking. They found him dead with the bag over his head, having died the same way as Ella. I also learned from the man that is cremating Ella for us that he has had five other dogs who have died like this in the past month! Make sure that all plastic bags and bags and boxes with bag liners (chips, snack crackers, cookies, cereal, etc.) are way out of your companion animals!

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