My dog ate what!
Luca, the puppy who was in serious trouble!
Luca was 8 weeks old when he
came into our lives and quickly crept into our hearts! We spent every waking
moment with him of and just loved watching him explore - especially at
the beach.
As is usual with most puppies, Luca was very inquisitive and
spend a lot of time sniffing around and basically ‘tasting or eating’ anything
that could be food!
In January, we were on holiday at Kosi Bay
and of course, our precious boy went on the adventure with us. One evening
during our wonderful holiday it became very clear that Luca was in distress,
and we had no idea what was wrong!
After a while he seemed to settle down but that night he began
gagging and retching. We took him to a vet in Matubatuba. By this time, it was
clear something was drastically wrong! Luca was stabilized but in desperate
need of specialised veterinary treatment. Denis (The vet from Matubatuba) went
with us all the way to Westville Veterinary Hospital – he kept our poor baby
alive on the back seat!
After Luca was admitted to Westville Vet, he was
resuscitated 3 times. As part of his treatment an CT scan was done where a tiny red
berry was discovered in his right lung! Every time our poor Luca was trying to
breath the berry would block his airway…
I am grateful beyond words to Denis for his kindness and commitment,
then for the miracle surgery that Dr Richard Smith and his amazing team had to
perform which ultimately saved Luca’s life!
- Sharon Maskell
If I could offer any advice to other pet parents from this traumatic experience it would be the following … pay more attention. Having a puppy, or even an adult dog, is no different to having a small child. Sometimes dangers are in plain sight. Please do not allow them to chew ANYTHING unattended and especially toys which could become hazardous when damaged through chewing - HOOVES are the worst! Your puppy/dog WILL chew it and WILL try swallow it!
I have seen them eat just about anything you can name
– rocks, balls, baby pacifiers (dummies), a platoon of GI Joe plastic toy
soldiers, clothes by the rack full, and in particular those that smell good –
socks, underpants, and my all-time favourite, a pink G-string that led to an
awkward conversation in the consult room on producing the offending item post-surgery,
when the wife claimed she did not own a pink G-string…!
They just love to eat stuff, in the vain hope that it really might be food. They are the perpetual bowl-is-half-full, those dogs. Some dogs go their whole lives without eating anything they shouldn’t, or without encountering any problems when they eat something questionable. Others are frequent fliers and have several surgeries to remove objects lodged in their tummies. “ A particularly endearing Basset Hound, went under the knife 9 times in her time on the planet to remove rocks obstructing her small intestine!...by the 3rd surgery I was seriously considering putting a zipper in her abdomen for easy surgical access!
Cats on the other hand tend to be more sensible, and will only eat actual confirmed food, but only after an official taste tester has verified it is not poison, and that it tastes good enough to pass one’s whiskers. They are too busy plotting the eventual overthrow of mankind to go crazy and eat rocks, socks and jockstraps. However, in order to try and maintain their superiority, they tend to do it in spectacular fashion – they love long stringy things – which cause the nightmare we call “linear foreign bodies”.
Some of these ingested things can cause all sorts of mischief for the animal, resulting in all sorts of medical gymnastics being necessary. Some have to be removed surgically and the lucky ones can have them removed using endoscopy. In general, anything that gets stuck, causing a blockage of the intestines has to be removed surgically. If we know it is in the stomach, then as long as we have something to grab onto, it can in most cases be removed using a number of specialized grabbers we pass through a flexible fibre optic endoscope – the stomach does have to be empty otherwise it become the proverbial needle in a haystack.
Some things may pass through without causing any harm.
This depends on a number of factors:
The size of the object and the size of the dog
relative to the object – a bouncing ball in a Great Dane is a very different
picture to a bouncing ball in a 10kg Jack Russell Terrier
The shape of the object – a smooth marble has far more
chance of making it through than anything that has a rough surface that the
intestine can hang onto.
The composition of the object – as a general rule, most biological materials can be broken down when the stomach acid starts working on it, however, if it passes through into the small intestine before it as broken down it may become a problem. Cloth, plastic and metal, however, is in it for the long haul, and is far more likely to cause an obstruction.
Sometimes it can be tough to diagnose these things!
Not everything that a dog will eat will show up on a radiograph (x-ray). Cloth,
rubber and plastic may be totally invisible on a radiograph. Ultrasound can be
extremely helpful in these cases. Although we may not be able to diagnose what
is stuck we can determine whether there is an obstruction or not. Sometimes, it
can be an educated guess and we find ourselves in the position of having to
take a dog to surgery on the suspicion that something is stuck there, without
concrete proof…we joke about going in to “release the evil spirits!”
Fish hooks are a particular problem. Unfortunately for
most, the natural tendency is to pull on that piece of nylon when one sees it
hanging out the mouth, and this causes the hook to stick into either the
oesophagus or the inside of the stomach. The nylon can play a vital role in our
ability to easily retrieve the fish hook using the endoscope. If there is
sufficient length available and the dog will tolerate it, secure it to the
dog’s collar. If not, rather let the dog swallow what is there and we can
retrieve it from the stomach using the scope.
With the cost of surgery, and some of the risk involved, it is worth the effort to try and keep always-inquisitive dogs from eating anything that isn’t nailed down. It is best to practice common sense and avoid having to go under the knife for something that is preventable.
A dog who is stimulated and not bored is
less likely to go after the ‘verboten stuff’. Making sure they have plenty of
exercise, quality time with you, and plenty of safe toys to choose from –
rotate them and don’t leaving them lying out all the time otherwise they lose
their novelty …unless it’s a really food motivated dog like a Labrador or Beagle,
in which case the rule is that stick trumps ball, food trumps stick…and most
importantly do not allow them access to rubbish bins or bags.
Comments
Post a Comment