The deadly snack that could suffocate your pet

Dog owners have been issued a disturbing warning about a lesser-known hazard threatening the lives of their four-legged friends.

Snack packets can pose fatal risks to dogs, which was something a woman named Traci, from Michigan in the US, unfortunately had to learn the hard way.

Her dog, Wasabi, suffocated to death after sticking her head inside an empty pork rind bag.

“She had left to go pick up something at a friends, wasn't even gone 10 minutes and her roommate called,” Traci’s mum, Patricia Polacco, wrote in a post to Facebook on November 14.

“He found her next to the front door with the bag still on her head. It hadn't even crossed her mind that something like this could happen.”

Dog with its head in a chip bag as owners are warned of the suffocation risk they pose to pets.
Dog owners have been warned of the risk of leaving empty packets of chips and snacks in places their pets can get to them. Source: YouTube/WUSA9

Ms Polacco, a prominent author and illustrator, urged her followers to “spread the word” about the risk irresponsibly disposed of bags could pose to dogs.

“Chip bags, zip lock bags with left over food in them, treat bags, yogurt containers, especially the YoPlait, cut it all up,” she wrote.

“Don't leave them where pups and cats can get to them. Our hearts are still broken. Thank you.”

Many people had similarly devastating stories to tell, and took to the comments sections to share in the woman’s empathy.

“We lost our 18 month old lab to a similar accident. She got the bag from a cereal box on her head and suffocated while we were out at a baseball game at the local park. It was so heartbreaking,” one wrote.

‘He was dead when they got home’

“We lost our Goldie to a Cheese It liner bag. Saddest day of my life. She never got into food, or dug in the trash. Now, all snacks go in a bowl at our house,” another shared.

“My daughter's dog did the same thing but with a big oatmeal box that was in the trashcan. They left for the store, came back and he was dead,” a third person wrote.

Another owner lost her pet in a similarly traumatic event, saying in the process of its death, her dog “knocked over lamps and tables and things like that before he finally suffocated. It was a horrendous way to go”.

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