Complications from a bone obstruction removal surgery killed my dog

My beautiful four year old golden retriever Loki died due to complications from a surgery to remove a piece of raw beef neck bone from his intestines.

This is my first post on Reddit. It is long and my only intent with it is to create awareness and help other people make better decisions when it comes to feeding their dogs. 

I, like many of you, have been a raw pet food supporter for years. When we got my dog in early 2021, I was eager to find a high quality food that would extend his life and prevent him from developing a disease like the one we had lost our previous dog to (cockapoo - congestive heart failure that took him at 10 years old, which I had believed was related to kibble feeding). I did some research and learnt about raw food. After a few months of more consideration, I called my local specialty pet food store and got Loki started on raw, to the trepidation of my entire family. 

It was great. The frenzied itching he had been doing on his breeder recommended chicken kibble stopped. His poos were smaller and less smelly. His fur seemed to glisten. He was lean and mean and throughout his life many people commented on his weight to me. Some said he was too skinny. Some said he looked amazing. The vet said he liked them leaner for their joints and I was doing good, but to “proceed with caution”, as raw food was not without risk (pathogens). I took that with a grain of salt as Loki had been just fine so far. Listeria and salmonellosis are uncommon in dogs. E.coli was a potential concern but, as I said, Loki had been doing fine so far. I knew I did not want to feed him the kibble or canned food on the shelves at the vet that had an extensive ingredient list which included non-human grade meat and processed carbs. Plus I had read that animal nutrition is not extensively covered in vet school. Disease, and drugs are their main expertise. I thought my vet was not the authority on the subject.

As Loki grew bigger and stronger I began looking for more ways to enrich his life. He had always been an intense chewer. When walking him in the trails behind my house he would find sticks and try and lie down to shred them. More interested in chewing on something than continuing our adventure. I saw the rows of raw bones in freezers at the pet store. After his adult teeth grew in, I did a bit of research yet again. Raw bones were said to be great for teeth cleaning and general enrichment. Dogs need to chew. “Give that dog a bone!” Everyone knows that saying. It seemed like a no brainer to me. Wolves devour the bones of mammals in the wild. Wolves do not get tartar on their teeth.

Have you ever heard of confirmation bias? Anything I read that contradicted the feeding of bones — the risk of tooth fractures or bowel obstructions — coming mainly from articles by vets or vet help sites, I either didn’t believe or completely avoided them. I wanted my dog to enjoy bones and I had formed the strong opinion that he was designed to digest them. Vets didn’t support raw food or bones. They pushed gross brand partner kibbles with carbs that caused tarter and enzymatic toothpastes to remove said tartar. When dogs got fat and diseased from kibble carbs they prescribed drugs. We had experienced this firsthand with our cockapoo. “Raw bones are safe,” many holistic animal sites proclaimed. “It’s the commercial cooked bones that are the problem. They splinter upon consumption.” When my vet complimented the pearly white appearance of my dog’s teeth I told him about the bones. He gave me a look and told me once again to be careful. “I will”, I said, thinking how silly he was.

Loki LOVED bones. They were his favourite thing in the world next to fetching his balls from the pool and rolling in poo. I thought I was doing the right thing for my dog, whom I loved deeply. I wanted him to have the best things in life and felt strongly that bones were one of those things.

I know that after reading what’s next many of you will still want to feed your dogs raw bones, and I say fine, go ahead. I can’t tell you want to do with your dog. I can only share my sad story. Some dogs will do fine with all manner of bones their whole life. Maybe they have stomach acid to rival nitric acid. Maybe they are gentle chewers. Maybe their owners watch them like hawks while they chew, ready to swoop in to wrench an overlarge fragment from their back of their throats before they can swallow. Maybe to them the benefits are huge and the risks seem very small and implausible. That’s certainly how I felt when I saw my dog enjoying one of his raw bones.

In October 2023 I fed my dog a raw beef neck bone from my favoured pet food store. He chewed it happily. I was sitting there watching him and never noticed anything out of the norm. I had given him this specific type of bone before. The morning after he ate his breakfast, drank some water and promptly vomited it all back up onto the kitchen floor. He could not keep anything down that day. The emergency vet was called as it was a weekend. Oddly many were full to capacity. I got in with the third one I called the next town over. They saw him the very next day.

$7,000+ later, he was out of surgery in a near catatonic state. The initial X-ray had confirmed a bone fragment. The surgeon did not need to make any incisions into the bowel itself which I was enormously relieved about. Nothing had turned necrotic, the fragment was small enough it could be “pushed through” the bowel until it was in the colon, right at the anal canal. The surgeon said he would be able to pass it on his own and he was cleared to go home.

The guilt I felt. The relief. My Loki was three years old at that time. While he was in surgery I had horrible visions of ropes of intestines needing to be removed. What kind of life could he life after that? How could I have let something like this happen? I’d never noticed him breaking off and swallowing a too large piece of bone. But how would I even notice something like that? I don’t have x-ray vision. It’s not exactly easy to get things they are eating out of their mouths. He used to growl at my cats if they so much as looked at him when he had his bone. Besides, how large is too large? I had no frame of reference for this.

Understandably, I became disillusioned with raw bones after this. I told my dog walking friends about what happened. The ones that fed raw bones to their dogs without issue were shocked. Those that don’t feed anything in the realm of raw seemed to shrug it off. “That’s your fool mistake”, it seemed like they were thinking. 

Loki passed the bone fragment on the second day after coming home from surgery. Me and my mom danced around with joy. The piece was scarcely larger than a toonie (that’s a Canadian two-dollar coin with a circumference of about 28 mm). I was really expecting something a lot larger. “His stomach acid couldn’t break this down?” I thought to myself. Perhaps he’s not as much like a wolf as I thought. Why I ever believed my purebred golden retriever was capable of the same things as his wild ancestor that he is somewhere between 27,000–40,000 years removed from, I will never know. Aside from a large swath of fur shaved from his belly, antibiotics, and a mandatory period of minimal activity, he survived the whole thing more or less unscathed. Or so we thought.

My beautiful, intelligent, extremely kind and loyal golden retriever Loki died on January 8th, 2025, a little over one year after his bone obstruction removal surgery.

He presented two days prior with vomiting, diarrhea, drooling, and inappetence. He had just come home from playing like crazy with his dog friends before it all began. Ten plus X-rays, and my main vet could not figure out what the issue was until exploratory surgery. Mesenteric Torsion was the diagnosis. A rare and extremely fatal condition where the bowels twist on themselves, cutting off blood supply. 

Predisposing factors include (but are not limited to) the following:

 -deep chested breeds (which he was)

 -vigorous activity (we always made sure he got one to two hours of exercise daily) 

 -recent gastro intestinal surgery (!!)

As we later learned, abdominal surgery does not come without potential complications. What’s known as “intestinal adhesions” have been known to form following surgery. These can also be caused by inflammation or trauma to the intestines, but surgery is the most likely cause. Even something so simple as a spay surgery can do it.

“It is possible the adhesion formed after the bone removal surgery,” my vet told me afterwards and showed me a picture of what he had found inside Loki, a thin string-like band of scar tissue that had formed over a portion of his bowels and made them more likely to twist upon themselves after food or physical exertion. I was always careful to prevent exercise after his eating, waiting 1-2 hours after he ate to do anything with him. I’d heard about bloat and knew this was a way to avoid it. I’d never heard about Mesenteric torsion, and it is my hope that none of you will ever see it in your dogs. But I feel compelled to share my dog’s story.  

Raw bones, while a great source of enrichment for dogs and a “natural toothbrush” of sorts, are not without their risks. Many dogs may handle them fine, but that is not the rule. The consequences are very real, and I’m not all that certain they are rare.

My foolishness cost my innocent dog his life and I will carry that with me for the rest of mine. 

We feed our dogs raw food and bones because we love them and we think it’s the best for them and want them to live a long and happy life. There is nothing more devastating than losing your dog due to something you did with the purest intentions. If my ignorance and the pain I feel will mean something to the life of even one dog, that would be okay with me.

My Loki I am so sorry. I see you in my minds eye every time I look over my shoulder, running like crazy to catch up with me with your ears flapping out behind you, a big doggy grin on your face. 

Please understand the risks before feeding your dog a bone. I’m not sure if I will ever have another dog, the one I lost was just about the best there is and I feel like I am meant to feel this void in my life forever as punishment for how I failed him. 

I do know that I would never again give another dog a bone. I don’t care what kind of bone it is, it’s just not worth it.