Other articles with keyword "DOGGIEPING" since 12/29/04
Posted on 03/31/2006 4:10:22 PM PST by aomagrat
(Note: Some images are graphic. Click 'More photos' to view a slideshow.)
A Socastee resident is spreading a safety message after her dog lost part of his tongue in a paper-shredder accident.
Sandy Clarke's boxer Cross lost "three or four chunks" of his tongue in late February when he stuck it into a shredder in her home office.
"The dog was screaming," said Clarke, who ran out and yelled for her husband after Cross became entangled. "I woke my daughter up screaming. It was very traumatic."
The incident lasted 10 to 15 minutes, with Cross finally being freed once the shredder was put in reverse instead of trying to pull him out.
"I didn't want more damage done," Clarke said.
The number of shredder accidents - usually involving small children - has caught the attention of national advocates who are now working to make safety standards better.
That's good news to Clarke, whose dog is still healing a month after the incident.
"I'm trying to get the word out. People need to be aware," she said. "[Shredders] need to be unplugged or there needs to be new safety devices on them."
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said it most often hears about accidents involving small children.
"We are aware of about five incidents involving dogs getting their tongues stuck in the shredder," said Patty Davis, spokeswoman with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. "Some of those had to be euthanized."
The market has changed for paper shredders, she said, with more people using them at home for work or as a means to prevent identity theft. Thus the Safety Commission is hearing about more accidents.
The devices are more popular than ever, according to the School, Home and Office Products Association. Shredder sales in 2005 grew 16 percent to $406 million from $350 million in 2004.
The national Safety Commission received 50 reports of paper shredder incidents from January 2000 to September 2005. Injuries included finger amputations and lacerations, with most incidents happening to children younger than 5.
The commission suggests parents never allow their children to operate a shredder - even with an adult present. Shredders without an on/off switch should also be unplugged when not in use. People should also keep shredders in a place that's not accessible to a pet's tongue or child's little finger.
"A child doesn't know that you need to let go" of the paper, Davis said.
Clarke has been able to take her concerns to the masses through national TV reports. She hopes to see tougher measures than a "keep kids and pets away" blurb, and she may get her wish.
The safety commission is working with national testing lab Underwriters Laboratory to revise shredder standards to require stricter warning labels and to make the feeder area opening smaller and less flexible.
The current standard is designed to keep a 12-year-old's fingers out, Davis said, and a revised one would protect younger fingers.
As for Clarke's shredder, it's still in her office - unplugged - though Cross doesn't visit like he used to.
Clarke's daughter, Michael-Ann, 11, says the dog, who turns 1 on Saturday, now shakes when he hears the shredder.
The injury was a first for Ark Animal Hospital in Surfside Beach, where the animal was treated, Dr. Greg Conner said.
The hospital sees its share of traumas, the veterinarian said, but this was unusual.
"It might be more common than we think, but that's the first I've seen it," Conner said. "That's the first I've heard about it. ... It looked pretty ugly."
Cross managed to avoid additional amputation and was treated for tongue lacerations, which heal well, Conner said.
The dog should still have full use of his tongue for eating, drinking and licking, he said. "The good news is that it's a happy ending for the dog."
will it work with cats?
Oooouuuch!
Use one at work.
May never be able to look at it the same way again.
> ... parents never allow their children to operate a shredder ...
With kids around, even visiting, the shredder needs to
be out of reach or inoperable, lest checks, stocks,
bond, cash, pets and the child disappear into it.
Even the insertion of an unshreddable object (table
fork) will wreck both the fork and the shredder.
Due to identity theft concerns, shredders are becoming
quite popular (we've had one for over a decade), and
these accidents are going to continue. Take steps to
ensure your name isn't featured in the next story.
No, they're too thick. Run over them once or twice and they should run through without a problem.
A safety warning for dogs: beware of paper shredders!
The technology to build paper shredders existed a hundred years ago, but people then would have thought the notion absurd. Fireplaces and stoves worked faster and better, and didn't require electricity.
I looked at one of the pictures. Actually, it looked sort of like decorative cutouts. My irreverent thought was there are people who pay to have that done to their tongues.
That said, for this to be a 15 minute incident, with the poor dog howling and bleeding, must have been horrible.
I only got the cat halfway through before the shredder jammed. Couldn't get the shredder to go in reverse so I had to put up with the cat in the shredder for another day and a half. Next time the cat goes in head first, but that has it drawbacks as well if the shredder jams again.
Yeah, as well as the even more convenient 55 gallon incinerator. Try using one of those today, though, and watch the full wrath of the nanny state befall you.
This hurts just reading about it.
I'll bet Gromit doesn't have this problem.
Just get Congress to pass a law the says the shredder manufacturer must put a warning label at dog's eye level warning the dogs about the danger.
Not to mention that the kid may feed interesting looking things into the shredder to see the shreds. Such as the contents of Mommy's billfold.
Spot was wondering, too!
Ironically, I think strip-cut shredders are probably most common among the people who shred the smallest volume of material.
A 4:1 torque converter on a 3500 rpm motor in the 1 horse range should do the trick.
I will check the junk yard and hardware store first thing tomorrow morning. Thanks. There is a particularly big orange cat that has been sleeping on the hood of the vehicle at night that I want to help out.
"will it work with cats?"
Tongue or the whole thing?
Here kitty, kitty Daddy just a 4:1 torque convertor and
1 horsepower electric motor for his shredder.
Home shredders should only work with an on/switch, lest even adults accidentally feed in, as you said, ".....checks, stocks,
bonds, cash, pets and the child....".
I use a very, very heavy duty shredder at work, from time to time, and we always use the two person rule. That is, there must be two people present at all times, so that one of them can turn off the shredder when the other one gets sucked in.
I define a very, very heavy dute shredder as a machine that is fed by a conveyer belt, and can take a 4-inch thick stack of paper every 5 seconds.
One could feed copious junk mail into the machine to "dilute" the contents.
I found a better solution however: the garbage disposal in the kitchen. Whatever goes through that becomes not shreds but pulp. As I found out when feeding it a little too fast, the drain clogging, and having to open the drain pipe cleanout port. I poked, poked, poked at the wad of mushed paper with a broom stick and then it and the backed up water came loose GOOOOOOOOSHHHHHHHHHHH all over the basement floor.
The new target!
Just today I watched a "special report" on kids losing their fingers in paper shredders. The timing seems more than coincidental.
Did you know that you can make butt copies on a shredder just like you can on a copier?
Oh come on, this stupidity wasn't even done by a human being.
But these are also people who have the least likelihood anyone sophisticated enough to piece together a chance bank statement will find and do harm with it.
Most people need only to prevent themselves from being ~easy~ targets for the casual thief, not defend against the full tech and forensics teams at CTU.
Back in the day, when I was in the USAF, the only approved method of disposing of cryptologic materials was to pulp them in a blender. Not just any blender, though, only Oster blenders were approved.
Is that butt copies, or butt shavings?
You might get shavings but it won;t be butt shavings. Hey, I am off to Gitmo with this idea.
Prolly on contract to the gummint. $1000 for yer typical $25 walmart blender.
I wouldn't think a $25 blender would work very well or last very long under such usage.
that is so sick....but LOL....I have been hanging around my 3 sons way to much to find the humor in your comment.
I know. I was pretty upset when the vet told me that the paper shredder was ruined and he couldn't save it.
LOL....very sick humor....
10. He now drools in 6 different directions.
9. When he laps water in a pond, it looks like a pack of nightcrawlers. The durned bass won't leave him alone!
8. Singing, Thuh Thweet ol' Thummertime just isn't the same anymore.
7. French kissing now causes collatoral damage.
6. He dropped from #1 to #8 in the county water melon seed spitting rankings.
5. He can't laugh at the cat for that 'tail caught in the alternator belt incident' anymore.
4. Blockbuster doesn't know what the heck he's talking about when he asks for his favorite "Thalma Hayek" movie.
3. With his current enunciation and diction, Jim McGreevey keeps trying to adopt him.
2. Any time he pants very hard, he sounds like he is blowing a raspberry.
And the number one reason why the dog should never have let its tongue get caught in a paper shredder:
He still can't get one of them John Kerry Purple Hearts!
Or you could, say, move the switch into the OFF position?
It's also a good idea not to let Fido leap into a wood chipper as well.
No, not this time. There was no specification about where to get the blenders, just the brand name. Given military conservatism, it could have simply been that Oster basically invented the blender.
LOL!
No, just someplace that produces a high volume of very sensitive waste paper. Actually, we no longer produce that much paper on a regular basis, and we no longer have the staff to collect and shred it 3 times a week, like we used to.
In fact, we recently sold the building the shredder facility is in and we are not going to move it to the new facility. Management convinced a govt. agency to come collect it and dispose of it for us. Is this progress, or what?
My wife read a different story about the same thing a few years ago, and got so worried about our dogs we immediately unplugged the shredder and added it to our next Yard Sale.
Wow, that pit-bull really wanted that porcupine. I wonder if the porcupine survived? BTW was that pic off the net or was that your dog?
Off the net.
I don't have a dog. :-)
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