Liz Buchanan BVSc MRCVS
Keymaster
Hello - and my heart goes out to you. The short answer is, I don't know, but please permit me some ramblings around the problem.
Possible future events can be certain or uncertain and they can be bad or good. This is not an either/ or, binary situation but a sliding scale; bad things might be cataclysmic, or bad but survivable, or regrettable but very manageable, or mildly bad, like missing the bus home.... and so on. There is also a sliding scale of how 'definite' something is thought to be (to answer question 2, there is no such thing as 100% sure - we all know someone we thought we'd definitely see again, for example, before something happened completely out of the blue).
I think that most of us find it extremely hard when bad outcomes are unpredictable AND potentially unpleasant. A dogs' guts are like a black hole in that you can't see what is happening in there, so it is impossible to know where that toothpick is, or even whether it is there at all. The longer a toothpick is in there, the softer it will become and the less likely to cause damage, but I'm afraid I have absolutely no evidence or data to give you regarding the time it takes a toothpick to dissolve or become incapable of causing damage within a dogs' stomach or guts. Perhaps it was chewed extremely well right at the beginning, and was immediately less dangerous than if your dog had chomped on a twig. You may be worrying for no reason at all.
Indeed, it sounds as though your vet thinks it reasonable to assume that the toothpick will no longer cause problems. But for sake of argument, let's assume that this is an incredibly unusual event and it does. I wonder whether having endured the stress of worrying about it, makes this event any more or less likely? Or any more or less likely than other events that could also occur out of the blue?
Rather, it may help to monitor for the signs; abdominal pain, vomitting, depression, etc etc. It is common for ingestion of an object not to be witnessed, or even suspected until clinical signs of peritonitis appear. It is not unusual for such an object to be retrieved even at this point and the dog to be fine in the end. Usually it is impossible to tell how long the object has been there. I once x-rayed a dog that had swallowed a tent peg, more or less whole, without the owners having a clue when, or indeed how. The dog was fine.
The only way I can think of to actually look in the guts is an endoscopy, but these are expensive and invasive, may need to be done from both ends to cover the full GI tract. There is still a chance of it missing a toothpick and the risk of prolonged anaesthetic has to be factored in as well, so we would advise seeking your vets advice on their perceived usefulness of this procedure at the time.
Meanwhile, you are left with an inevitable task of managing your anxiety around the situation, however well founded or not.
Wishing you - and your enthusiastic tooth-pick eater - all the best.
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