A dog that wolfed down a 4in spring has bounced back to health after undergoing life-saving treatment. Rottweiler pup Rosie swallowed the plastic spring while playing with a cat toy at her home.
Owner Claire McConnell rushed her beloved pooch to the vets who used a camera and forceps to retrieve the object from the two-year-old dog’s stomach.
The 48-year-old said: “I knew instantly what it was when the vet called me to say a foreign body had been found in her stomach. I was still surprised and shocked, though, as it had been at least four weeks since she had swallowed it.
“I had regularly checked to see if it had come out the other end for about a week after she swallowed it but nothing – and then I thought that perhaps she hadn’t swallowed it after all. When it showed up on the X-ray I was very concerned and knew if they couldn’t remove it via her mouth then she would have to have an operation to remove it.”
There was a real risk the toy might have become wedged in her oesophagus, which could have been fatal. Rosie underwent the 15-minute procedure without surgery and has since made a complete recovery.
Claire added: “Thankfully, everything went well, and Rosie is doing so much better now and is back to her loveable, bouncy, crazy self. “She was looked after very well by all the staff, and I was kept informed at every stage of her treatment.”
Rosie was treated at Linneaus-owned Blacks Vets after she gobbled up the spring last month. Clinical director Brian Hogan said Rosie arrived at the vets showing signs of lethargy and a high temperature.
He said: “It was an incidental find which was captured by the x-rays as we investigated Rosie’s lameness. When we discussed it with the owner, she remembered that her cat was playing with a toy four weeks earlier and Rosie appeared to grab and swallow it.
“She said they’d monitored her closely afterwards but Rosie didn’t pass anything and appeared well. That’s not unusual. Many patients can remain very well, however, if the object moves from the stomach to the small intestine, it could then cause a serious blockage so we needed to remove it.
“The spring was plastic, so we hoped to retrieve it using an endosope without causing significant trauma to Rosie’s oesophagus. If that failed, she would have required surgery to remove the spring.
“It was a tricky procedure which took around 15 minutes. The challenge was that the tool designed to grip and remove the spring must fit through a very narrow channel within the endoscope and is, therefore, quite delicate. We were concerned it may not be robust enough to maintain a strong enough grip as we squeezed the spring back up through the oesophagus.
“We worked as a team to slowly and carefully inch it up from her stomach, into her mouth and finally removed it successfully.
“I was assisted by the anaesthetist and a vet nurse to control the endoscope and the grasping tool, and everything went well and we succeeded with very little trauma to Rosie.”
