I was sent the following email today.  It makes horrible reading, & I don't know how true it is but I did find, via Yahoo, a reference to the vet and to similar incidents.

-- this one comes from a well respected Borzoi person, and veterinarian,
Elizabeth A Coney, DVM of Kentucky.

She wrote:
Now - for every one of you that has a home paper shredder with an
"auto on" feature, I want you to go turn it off and unplug the
paper shredder right now. Because night before last I was
presented with a paper shredder containing most of the tongue, ripped
out by the base, and a very pretty sweet 1 1/2 year old lab cross
whose owners euthanized her.

She always watched the paper go into the shredder, she thought it
fascinating. The "auto on" feature means the shredder sits there
waiting for something to get placed into it. Like an inquisitive tongue.

I told them, "Dogs can do fine without a tongue, they have to learn to drink
and eat differently", but the owners didn't want to go there. The look in
her eyes said, "I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't supposed to do that, it's all my
fault". We all cried.

I cried when I read this, myself. In subsequent posts Beth says she has
learned that dogs who have lost more than half their tongues *don't* do
as well as she had been taught. According to the veterinary literature
it is also possible for animals to be injured other places than tongues - a
Basset
lost an ear, a long-haired cat most of the skin on its side, a kitten a
foot, etc.

This is worth passing on to other dog lovers.