Hello, Mr. Frawley:
First of all, I do truly respect your work and endeavor to bring dog training to higher level. I purchased many videos and training equipment with very high qualities. I have been very pleased with most of them!!

I have 20 months old male German shepherd that I have been working on building drive using your video with Bernard Flinks. He did not have good drive at the beginning. Now his drive is getting stronger and stronger. He is also getting very fast to grab the ball that I have been accidently bitten many times.

About an hour ago, I was working my dog with a ball with string that I purchased from you. He was getting very excited as usual. When I dropped it, he catched it, then oh my god.... He was choking himself!!!!! It got stuck in his throat and he could not spit it out! He was panicked and jumping all over for several seconds....
His eyes were rolling over and he was gasping for an air. Thank god, the string was hanging out of his mouth. I immobilized him and grabbed the string, and pulled it out. Literally I heard "pop" out of his throat when it finally came out. The whole thing only happened in about 20 seconds.

I don't know if anybody out there had similar accidents, but I surely almost killed him tonight! If there was no string, I could not have been able to save him from choking to death.

Mr. Frawley!
With all the respect, I am posting this message not to have other people experience similar problem in the future. Could you possibly consider sell larger balls in a string? My dog is only 75 lbs medium average German Shepherd, and I am afraid if it happens to other dogs.

Sincerly,
Tae-Jun Ahn

Bernard Flinks covered this unfortunate incident last weekend. This happened to his dog, Itor, at the Peoria seminar.

If the string comes loose from the ball and the dog is still choking, you need to do a doggy-Heimlich. This is similar to the what we do for people who are choking with a blocked airway.

Lay the dog on his side. Press down hard with the palms of your hands on his ribcage. If that doesn't work, step sharply on the ribcage with your foot. You may break a few ribs but it's better than a dead dog.

If I recall correctly, Itor needed the foot to the ribs to expel the ball.

After the dog passes out from lack of air, you only have about a minute before permanent brain damage occurs.

This brochure is a handy reference for animal CPR. The PDF can be printed and folded into thirds. Laminate it and keep it in your training bag for ready reference.

PDF version ftp://members.aol.com/henryhbk/dogcpr.pdf

HTML version http://members.aol.com/henryhbk/acpr.html

BTW, you need to have a really BIG knot in the string. Some dogs grip the ball so tightly, the string comes out of the ball.

Thank you for your info. I knew it might have happened to someone else out there. It is very surprising that Bernard' very Itor had that incident. I know what you also mean by possible danger of string pop off the ball. It has happened to me before during regular tug-of-war. When he was choking, I was indeed very afraid of the string come off. Thank God, the ball popped out of his throat.

Thank you again!

Tae-Jun