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Kathryn Hahn was at the Gotham Awards earlier this week when she did an interview with US Magazine. She told them that she has a dog who eats her kids’ clothing so much that he’s had to get three surgeries to remove their underwear from his stomach. That’s crazy! Kathryn, 45, has a 12 year-old son, Leonard, and a nine year-old daughter, Mae, with her husband of 16 years, actor Ethan Sandler.
“I got my [children] a rescue dog named Banjo and they just love him so much,” Hahn, 45, dished to Us at the Gotham Awards in New York City on Monday, November 26.
“He has given us a lot of joy… Even though he’s had three abdominal surgeries so far from eating their underwear.”
Hahn… opened up about her family life in an interview with Parade last month.
“I live a pretty normal life. I have cute kids and a hubby forever and two dogs and a rabbit and now a hamster. We’re turning into animal hoarders,” she told the publication in October. “So I have this rich and creative life but also a normal life, and I’ve been able to keep the two separate and holy.”
This makes me wonder what kind of breed Banjo is. I didn’t realize that dogs would eat clothing until my aunt’s pug had to have surgery after eating a sock. It must be so hard to keep small items of clothing away from dogs who will regularly eat them! You would have to put gates on the laundry room, make sure your kids aren’t leaving their underwear on the bathroom floor and secure the hampers. One of my friend’s cocker spaniels ate medication I left out on the nightstand at her house. I felt awful and we had to take the dog to the vet ER but I had no idea it would do that. I’ve also heard of dogs eating sanitary products too. Honestly I really want a dog but I’m curing myself of this by following so many adorable dogs on Instagram. They get sick, they make a mess in the house and they’re like kids except you can leave them alone for longer (and take your chances). Plus the vet bills really add up.
My dog ate a handbag. At first I only thought he chewed it until strips of leather started showing up in his 💩. Total nightmare.
My friend’s dog ate a leather jacket, so yeah, I get that. Hope he’s ok! 🙂
My black lab ate part of a quilt. He had fabric strips hanging out of his behind and batting in his poop. Vet bill nightmare.
Oh! … and my pittie mix gobbled some glue sticks and dowel rods. I thought maybe he was working on an internal craft project.
my money is on it being a lab. I know a lab who has eaten a box of crayons, a whole bag of avocados pits and all, a bag of dry rice, the crotch out of underwear, you name it. Granted lots of dogs like used undies. Very gross, very dog.
ding. black labs will eat anything. my co-worker’s only eats things whole. its was always choking. it had to have surgery to remove bone fragments from its infected intestines b/c it was swallowing moles from the yard whole and its normal digestion would only get through its outsides and partially digest the bone matter. the dog is fine. still only swallows things whole. they have to be super careful what they leave around.
My best friend’s dog ate a pair of her husband’s football socks. The vet asked her if she wanted them back! He was a Staffy. The dog, not her husband.
Labs are good for that. Our bully mix never so much as chewed on anything that wasn’t his. We got our lab mix and suddenly, we had to dog proof the house. He would eat everything EXCEPT his dog toys. And OMG Lizzie, the hunting every time we take him outside. We live in the woods, so lots of small animals to catch. We have to watch him like a hawk (which he also eyeballs consideringly). I’ve had to pull so many dead animals out of his mouth. Including a dead rotting squirrel. With my bare hands.
Groooss! I don’t know whether to laugh or throw up. 🧐
There’s a doctor in Vancouver, BC whose specialty is animal endoscopy, mostly dogs, but also cats, birds, and, apparently, a tiger. His name is Gorodetsky. Won’t link his facebook page because BEWARE! it requires a strong stomach, but pictures of amazing things removed from chew happy animals of all kinds. Underwear, rocks, 6 foot leash, 51 hair elastics (from a cat), makeup brushes, coins, corn cobs, whole potatoes, balls balls balls but toys of all kinds (and bone fragments too, usually from the esophagus…he’s not a fan of dogs with bones).
A quote on one of his pictures, “Long live the Labradors, endoscopy practice builders!”
I was aware of the two month old kitten with a cleft palate whose feeding tube was stuck in her stomach after she chewed through it, that’s how I came across him.
And, on a related note, I’m not a pet owner (allergies), but learned, from personal experience (Schnauzer belonging to former boyfriend’s parents), that unfortunately, a dog will eat sanitary products.
It’s so important that people know that if their dog eats a tampon and it, um, suddenly appears half out the dog’s butt, they should NEVER pull it out. Tampons can do serious damage to a dog’s intestines I think by absorbing all the fluid and pulling it out is so, so dangerous to the dog. It’s a medical emergency.
Take your dog to the vet immediately if they swallow a tampon!
@Brut, that is so crazy! But I’m glad for the information, I feel sure to encounter the situation some day. I had to take a German Shepherd mix to the vet because he had a whole banana peel sticking out his behind. The vet informed us he also extracted a popsicle wrapper and stick!
@BrutalEthyl, that makes sense. Though anything that makes it past the stomach into the intestine is potentially problematic.
Fortunately for the Schnauzer in question, he threw up, which solved the problem. In the car, on a long trip with my bf and I and his parents, who I had just met for the first time. The dog was fine, but I was absolutely mortified. My bf was cool about it, and we were in the back seat with the dog, so just a cleanup job, no fuss. He told his mom later, when I wasn’t around…
Turns out that intelligent, classy looking animal was a known garbage pail diver; no one had told me, and I had no experience with pets. But it’s something I never forget, whenever I’m around anyone’s animals, or for that matter, babies and small children!
Yes, our lab during his lifetime consumed eyeglasses, a Wii remote, books and countless clothing items. Just when we thought we had cleverly put everything out of his way, he’d consume something crazy. That loveable turd was exhausting and we miss him every day.
My brother has an Australian Shepherd/Bernese Mountain dog mix who seeks out socks. He’s been to the vet ER countless times due to related seizures and abdominal issues, but with several children around, there’s always a sock to be had. 2 years ago I was babysitting my 1-year-old niece when the dog, Finn, walked up to my niece, who was sitting in my lap and just calmly and gently pulled her little sock off her foot and took off running. I had to chase that punk with baby in hand to get the sock before he ate it! Ugh! But we love our fur babies!!
I feel that I have to defend labs after so many hilarious stories, they’re not all like that! My friend adopted a 7yo lab from the SPCA and I dogsat him over the xmas break right after she got him and I have never seen a dog so well behaved! He wouldn’t touch anything unless we presented to him, even the food that fell on the floor (I was hoping to give my roomba a break while I had it but no)
My aunt’s lab though would always sit in the middle of the kitchen floor and I highly suspected that he was trying to get us to trip so that he could eat what would fell. They once forgot to lock the cabinet where his chow was and, sure enough, the whole bag was gone in 30min. The pup was fine and ready for more!
I second the lab suggestion. My friend had a lovely yellow lab and he ate whole socks. Just chewed them up and swallowed them. He didn’t need surgeries though, luckily. She said he just pooped them out, and you could still make out the sock colours.
Last year, my Doberman had this issue. He didn’t eat for four days, so off to the vet we went. After the op, the vet handed me a dish containing a long, wide strip of corduroy fabric, saying that’s what he’d “eaten”. God only know where it came from; none of us has ever had an item made of corduroy in the place. Doggies…aahhh.
my friend’s lab ate a frisbee!
I’ve got a cockapoo that loves the crotch of anything, underwear especially. He has also gone for diapers, used sanitary products, socks, chocolate, and any food item that may come near his face. Pizza he grabs out of your hand and I swear, he has learned to dislocate his jaw so that he can swallow it whole before you have a chance to get it away from him.
Perhaps her kids should tidy up their undies?
Not that easy. Our Irish Setter can open drawers and has eaten countless numbers of socks. She can get into lidded hampers. You can put the clothing up high and it can fall down. We’ve been lucky because they’ve all come out one end or the other, but we do keep peroxide and a syringe around if we see her pelican swallow anything to induce vomiting.
Our family lab ate a sock when I was a kid. My mom, being negligent in her own children’s health needs, was not about to do shit for the dog. He pooped it out a few days later! Lucky dog.
I will never have a dog because I also don’t want to deal with the dogs health but I’m not negligent so if I had a dog I WOULD end up dealing with things like this. I’m not here for it.
Reading the comments, sounds like this is not uncommon. And it makes me feel grateful for my kitty…the strangest thing she’s eaten is spinach, lol. I have to eat salads in secret if I don’t want her climbing all over me, lol.
On a related note, Hahn was really great in an episode of The Romanoffs. I enjoyed the series a lot, wondering if anyone else got into it like me. No one I know IRL has watched it.
This. My kitty likes to chase bugs and it them and once she had a pretty bad episode of vomit from it, but that’s as bad as it gets with her. Dogs are way too high maintenance.
eat them*
My dogs don’t ingest anything weird ( they are Shelties ), but our two cats have had to have procedures ( one, an open surgery, the other, got away with endoscopy ) after eating many, many feet of my daughter’s craft ribbon, and a piece of decorative floral wire from a bouquet, respectively. 🙄 Thousands of dollars.
Oh no, I have heard that string/thread can be a problem for cats. Luckily mine seems to only like playing with string or yarn, not eating it.
My one cat LOVES bread and marshmallows. I have to make sure they are out of her sight. My daughter’s pit chewed up the towel they had in the kennel they had him in while they were at work. Also chewed up some deck chairs outside. He had to have surgery and it cost over $2000. Once he grew out of the puppy stage the chewing stopped.
My cat ate thread from my prom dress being hemmed and needed to have abdominal surgery and part of her intestine removed because of it, which was about $1400.
My rescue (lab/hound mix) ate a braided bracelet that we still have NO idea where it came from and had to have abdominal surgery to the tune of almost $1300.
They are lucky we love them.
My question may sound strange but I’m not a pet owner so I have zero experience in the subject. Is there a way to gently train your pet not to eat anything besides their food? A stomach surgery sound scary and dangerous for the animal, let alone having 3 and at least where I live, animal care is super expensive.
Definitely! She has the means to hire a great trainer. It sounds also like her kids are old enough to be more diligent about reducing the dog’s temptation. Hampers with lids, positive reinforcement/ reward chart, tell them that this could end the pet’s life. Jesus, he’s gonna have to deal with adhesions (internal scar tissue effecting organs) from all those surgeries.
Yes – for example, the post about the dog taking pizza from her hand….that’s very disrespectful behaviour in dog language and evidence to me the dog needs more consistent rules (dog does not leave the home ahead of human, ever), boundaries (dog does not enter human’s personal space without specific permission) and limitations (dog does not move forward in an excited state of mind). Teaching the dog boundaries (EVERYTHING in this house belongs to human, and you are lucky we are willing to share these dog toys and ONLY these dog toys with you) by ‘trading’ the NO item with a YES item will reduce these attention-getting behaviours. Also, consistent, regular exercise because a tired dog is closer to be a good dog than one still raring to go and do…..anything 🙂
There is Bitter Apple spray. You just spray the item with the spray, and if they take a taste, it will be so bitter an unappealing they will stop going after it.
Most of the issues can be resolved with owner and dog training, though!
We had a rescue dog (guessing lab/Doberman mix) that was also an object eater. She was the sweetest pup in the whole world but couldn’t resist baby socks. The challenge was that as much as we tried to keep her away from the socks, there’d be that one moment when our toddler took off a sock in the playroom and the dog would be on it! We found many little socks while pooper scooping. So anyway, I empathize with her and acknowledge that she’s probably doing everything she can to keep her dog from eating the underwear but kids and pets are unpredictable.
Such a funny visual! And little kids take socks off randomly, so that’d be hard to prevent.
I’m curious as to what breed her dog is as well! I grew up with small dogs as pets and our dog now is a small breed as well. My dogs have always loved “stank” things like underwear, socks even dirty diapers! So gross! lol! But they have never actually eaten them. This makes me think her dog is a larger breed. How scary that must have been for her! And three times! My goodness, I can’t imagine.
I love her in bad moms and she looks gorgeous in these photos. Funny, beautiful, down to earth and a dog lover – I think I have a new girl crush.
My fiancé’s (now deceased) boxer (he had her before I knew him and now we have two boxers of our own) ate socks. But luckily, she was able to pass them without any surgery. Our younger rescue boxer will eat anything that is left out. Hank regularly eats cotton pads that I use to remove my makeup. He did it so often that I had to get a garbage container with a lid for my makeup table. If a box of tissue is left out, he will destroy that and eat some of the tissues. He is a huge pain in the ass but I love him so much.
As a furmama to 2 dogs, this makes me chuckle. I’m glad the dog is okay! Dogs are like kids and can be messy and expensive, but the unconditional love and all the cute and funny things they do each day more than make up for it! My dogs cuddle me every day, I can’t imagine life without them, they enrich DH and mine life so much and have helped us through some dark times.
I don’t own a dog – I’m a cat person. I just came to say that I love Kathryn Hahn.
Me too! All of the above 😉
My dog shreds underwear – right at the crotch, she’s kinky like that. She’s probably ruined 30 pairs. I thought the washing machine was ruining them at first because she would take them out of the laundry basket, do her thing, AND THEN PUT THEM BACK IN. She has swallowed some underwear, however, but only on Christmas. It’s so weird. She barfed up two pairs practically whole one Christmas, and then last Christmas she did the same thing, but there were bits of fabric in her poo. She is so weird.
what cracks me up about your story is that she put them back into the laundry basket….now that’s a clever dog!! Time to teach her how to help with the laundry….she could go through the house and pick up items and drop them in the laundry basket for you! Brilliant way of turning deviant behaviour into a positive praise opportunity! Good for you and good for your pup
Yeah, one of my dogs went through a major period where she gifted me with many pairs of crotchless panties. -_- She seems to have stopped now, but she ruined two pairs of jeans and a pair of pajama pants because the underwear were still in them and she just chewed! She never ate a whole pair of underwear though, just chewed the crotch.
I love dogs so, so, so much, but they’re super gross sometimes. Adorable but gross. Lol
I lived with my aunt for awhile and she had a jack russell terrier that would, without fail, eat almost everything in the bathroom garbage. The dog especially loved kleenex. Everyday when we’d leave the apartment we’d have to close the bathroom door so the dog wouldn’t get it or you’d come home to kleenex and floss and maybe old sanitary items everywhere. Why didn’t we put the garbage can under the sink, you’d ask? My aunt didn’t want it under the sink, it was “inconvenient” and she thought closing the bathroom door was a better solution. Point is, dogs are dumb. Even my dogs now will chew up socks if you leave them out!
For some reason that I cannot explain, I read the headline on the front page as “Kathryn Hahn had to have three surgeries from eating her kids’ underwear” …
Needless to say, I could not click the link fast enough. (And, oh, the disappointment that followed.)
Bwahahahahaha!!! Thanks for the laugh Aeval!!
😂😂😂
Poor pup! 3 abdominal surgeries for something preventable. Gastrointestinal foreign bodies can be life threatening and with each additional surgery there are more potential complications. Please invest in a basket muzzle, KH, to keep your dog safe!
I’m kind of tired so I read dog as dad and was like, WTF?
Ugh. My dog, Penelope, ate THIRTEEN tampons from the trash once. Thank god she passed them all but we needed xrays etc. Her new name is Tamponelope.
I have the seeetest little pit bull who has chewed up over 5 dozen pairs of my underwear over 7 years!!!!!!! If I undress in the bathroom to shower and don’t shut the door……she’s that quick!!!! Funny enough she wouldn’t touch my husbands underwear and he’s all “pick up your underwear and it wouldn’t happen!” As his are literally ALL OVER our bedroom, walk in closet, and master bathroom. Ugh. Ironically I do put mine up but she will grab it off the bathroom counter top while I shower or change!! I’m down to about 7 pair I guard with my life.
My pug puppy loves to lick carpet, couches, and anything soft. A few months ago she started showing signs of an obstruction, and our vet rushed her into emergency surgery. She pulled out a solidified ball of hair the size of my fist. It was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. Needless to say when our apartment lease was up my husband and I specifically looked for an apartment that didn’t have much carpet lol. Our other dog never eats anything he’s not supposed to, but the puppy will try to eat anything. She pooped a button yesterday and I have no idea where it came from…
I love doggo’s, but this is one of many reasons to remember in reminding us all: they are stupid animals. Yes, I said it.
We had a beagle growing up. Unbeknownst to us, he ate a condom. Needless to say that his poop was gift wrapped.
35 years later, I still miss that crazy dog
This is the hardest I have laughed in a long time.
Three weeks ago a lab came to our practice who swallowed a whole Croc. Yes the shoe. Two weeks later the owners visited us again because the dog ate a kitchen sponge. Some dogs are like vacuums.
Oh I guess I can get into more detail about a story I alluded in yesterday’s dog post about intelligent dogs. My bichon didn’t really eat anything inedible per se. He liked to chew through things though. The bathroom/office garbage was never safe as he liked to forage used tissues and tear them to pieces and also check out wrappers of candy/cereal bars etc. He also ruined many dog beds because whenever we left him at a sitter’s for an extended period of time, he’d take out his separation anxiety on his bed and chew it up to the point of it being unusable.
But the one time he almost died, he somehow got left in the basement during a time when my parents were renovating their kitchen and the basement was not easily accessible so my parents left him there for the night. He was NOT happy and I guess took out his anxiety on the used cheap rug down there. Someone found him the next day with a piece of carpet fiber hanging out of his mouth and started pulling and pulling and the string just kept on coming out until it went taut and my mom or dad cut it. Since he was weak and lethargic and not acting himself, my parents took him to the emergency vet where my mom had to sign a DNR form for the dog (a fact my mom thinks is hilarious to this day). After the barium test, the vet informed my parents the obstruction was due to the amount of carpet fibers he had swallowed in the basement. He ended up not needing surgery and recovered a few days later. I was not home for this as I was in college on the time but seriously this dog had nine lives when it came to surviving things he shouldn’t. He also ate mice poison once and the only reason we knew it was because his poop was a bright turquoise, otherwise he had no symptoms.
We had a basset hound that ate my daughter’s underwear for a couple years, just hers. The dog would squeeze her nose into the air-holes in the laundry basket to get at it and if we caught her we’d try to get it away and as we got closer she’d just swallow it! It made me crazy. We took her to the vet so many times but thankfully she never had a blockage and always pooped it out. Thank goodness she finally grew out of the gross habit.
A friend of mine had a dobby who had to have several surgeries to remove socks from her stomach.
This thread is making me laugh. Out mixed dog who was 1/2 lab ate everything possible. I once couldn’t find an enormous bag of dove dark chocolate hearts for my child’s class party., when I took him for a walk he pooped out red tinfoil. Chocolate kills dogs.. no affect on that one. I miss the big idiot.
There is a particular gene (and all labs, for instance, have it) that causes dogs to always be hungry. I’ve looked after many dogs who will eat literally anything. Wood chips. Socks. Once, a box of matches (that one came right back up). Last night one of the dogs I’m looking after peed on a pee pad and then shredded it and ate some of it.
Our cat eats fabric like wool. Leaving a shirt in the living room during night time isn’t safe, she’ll eat it! This behavior is called ‘pica’.
Our 9 year old American Bulldog (120lbs and huge) likes to eat my socks. He also ate the sleeve of a new sweater:( last week he ate part of an old couch. Luckily he is ok but these are not his most endearing qualities. Still love him though. Oh he will also eat any and all paper so you have to keep important papers away from him.
This thread was exactly what I needed today, it really made me laugh! Working in the animal field, I’ve seen some pups eat some truly crazy things. Huskies are almost as notorious as labs for their diverse palates 😂
I feel like I have to mention that if your dog is chewing random things while you’re away, he or she may be suffering from separation anxiety and it’s not hopeless! Also, while some dogs are complete rascals, there is lots of fun and easy training out there that can be done to teach better house manners. It’s not so much about teaching your dog what not to do, but teaching your dog what he should do. Then again, sometimes letting your dog be mischievous is part of the fun.
my pit mix lola….. love chewing undies and sock… MUY GROSS lola lol