When Your Dog Eats Your Apple AirTag

After looking under the couch and table and enlisting his girlfriend to help search their two-bedroom house in Washington, D.C., Mr. Mortimer turned to his iPhone.

The 25-year-old fired up Apple’s Find My app, which showed that the white, bottle-cap-size disc was still in his home. He tapped a button on his iPhone to trigger the AirTag to beep. That’s what he heard coming from the belly of Sassy, a 50-pound Labrador retriever foster pup.

“I was like ‘Oh my God,’ ” said Mr. Mortimer, director of a public policy organization. “Luckily, we got her to throw it up.”

The AirTag, which was personalized with a puppy emoji, has a few bite marks but still works. He bought a new, $7 plastic holder from

Amazon,

and reattached the tracker to the collar of his older Lab, Sophie, he said.

In the two years since Apple began selling AirTags, the devices have helped countless people find their lost belongings, but they’ve also wound up in some surprising locations. Law-enforcement agencies say they have been involved in stalking cases, with people putting them in other people’s purses and cars. During the

Southwest Airlines

travel meltdown over the holidays, many people used them to locate their luggage.

Apple doesn’t advertise or recommend AirTags to be used for pet tracking, but many people have attached the devices to their dogs’ collars. They’re dust proof and water resistant and have replaceable batteries that last a year. They’re also the right size for bigger dogs to swallow whole.

Vets have warned people of the hazards, posting X-rays online of AirTags inside dogs. Often, dogs can vomit them up or poop them out with no major complications. Sometimes, they get stuck and require minor surgery. If they remain lodged long enough, the batteries can leak and cause complications, such as damage to organs. It isn’t known if any dogs have died from ingesting an AirTag.

“You want to get the AirTag out as quickly as possible,” said Ann Hohenhaus, senior veterinarian at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center in New York. “Pronto.”

Sarah Dwight, 24, and her fiancé, Justin Lackey, 24, of Phoenix, returned home from the gym in December 2021 and noticed small bits of plastic and metal strewn around their dog’s cage, where the couple put her while they were out to keep her out of trouble.

This time, while they were away, the Flat-coated retriever named Rose pawed off her leather AirTag holder, tore it up and gnawed through parts of Apple’s tracker.

The couple rushed Rose and the AirTag pieces to a nearby clinic, where a vet performed an X-ray. That showed fragments Rose likely could throw up, Ms. Dwight said. Luckily, the battery was eventually found in parts of the AirTag the pup didn’t ingest.

“We got the AirTag thinking it was a really awesome idea to be able to find the dog if it were to get out,” Ms. Dwight said. “But we didn’t stop and question: What are the drawbacks?”

The dog never showed signs that anything out of the ordinary had happened, Ms. Dwight said. “If you asked Rose, she’d probably say that night was a great time. She got carried around, got to meet people at the vet. She got lots of kisses and lots of attention,” Ms. Dwight added.

Dogs of all sizes chew household items for a wide range of reasons, including curiosity, boredom and loneliness, vets say.

David Hood, owner of St. Bernard Veterinary Hospital in Chalmette, La., said a 25-pound French bulldog was among six dogs he treated after swallowing AirTags over the past 18 months. Each time, the AirTag was initially attached to the dog’s collar, he said.

Younger pups are more prone to eating odd objects, Dr. Hohenhaus said, but even old dogs ingest items they shouldn’t. Vets also say dogs that nibble on other items with batteries, such as remotes and gaming controllers, or small objects like coins might find an AirTag appealing.

“There is something about some dogs’ personalities that makes them want to eat nonfood items,” Dr. Hohenhaus said.

Minutes before leaving for vacation, Yvohn Rohas, 34, noticed the AirTag she had attached to her 6-month-old puppy’s collar the previous week was missing.

“I thought, ‘My God, I hope she didn’t eat it,’ ” Ms. Rohas said of her Belgian Malinois named Luna.

The family took Luna with them on their drive to Orlando. Ms. Rohas tried locating the AirTag using Apple’s Find My app, but its location wasn’t updating and she couldn’t make it beep, she said.

While on the weeklong trip, the puppy ate, drank and behaved normally, so Ms. Rohas assumed that the AirTag was possibly left back home, or came out in Luna’s poop somewhere.

Finally, during the 90-minute drive back home to Oldsmar, Fla., she realized something was amiss when an iPhone notification said the Luna tracker was on Interstate 4 with them.

Ms. Rohas took the dog to the vet the next day, where an X-ray revealed the AirTag inside Luna’s stomach. Induced vomiting didn’t get it out. Surgery didn’t either, because the vet couldn’t find the AirTag.

“Sometime between the X-ray and the surgery, the AirTag had moved inside her stomach,” Ms. Rohas said. The vet stitched up Luna and sent her home.

About six weeks later, after Luna recovered and as her owners prepared for a second attempt at surgery, they got another shock.

“In the middle of the night I heard her start going ‘Gulp…gulp,’ ” Ms. Rohas said. “I shook my husband, ‘Babe, wake up! She’s about to…’ And sure enough, she threw it up.”

Luna went on as if nothing ever happened. The AirTag still works. Ms. Rohas now uses it to track her purse. “It’s a souvenir at this point,” she said.

Write to Dalvin Brown at [email protected]