One couple celebrated their engagement in a less than glamorous way - after their new puppy wolfed down the diamond ring.
A shock X-ray revealed the expensive sparkler was stuck inside seven-month-old Labrador Stevie's belly.
Vets advised them to "let nature take its course" so Elayna Rattenbury, 38, spent four long days searching through dog poo, with the help of a metal detector.
After double-checking every single poo bag, she was finally reunited with her precious engagement ring at last.
It needed a "good soaking and scrubbing" before Elayna dared smell it, but now it's back on her rightful finger.
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Elayna, from Worcester, said: "I'd left the bedroom door open and Stevie had sneaked in and she has a real thing for tissues.
"When Dave went back in there were tissues everywhere which Stevie had grabbed from a tissue box from the same bedside table where I’d put my engagement ring.
"I went to see the mess she’d caused and immediately realised the ring was not there. It was a heart-stopping moment.
"Then I looked at Stevie and thought, ‘She hasn’t, surely she hasn’t?’ But oh yes, she had."
Elayna and her fiancé Dave took Stevie to Linnaeus-owned Brentknoll Veterinary Centre in Worcester, who confirmed the pup was to blame.
She added: "The vets quickly got to the bottom of the problem and there was a real sense of relief in knowing that at least the ring was not lost.
"The problem now was retrieving it from Stevie’s tummy. The vets felt after some investigation that the ring was too far down.
"So, the only solution was to allow nature to take its course and let the ring pass right through Stevie and out the other end.
"I took her home and for the next four days I was rooting through her poo trying to find it.
"I’d expected to find it in the first 24 hours, so by day three I was thinking I must have missed it and started searching back through the poo bags from previous days.
"My husband Dave even bought a metal detector to try to find it and then, thankfully, on day four, it finally appeared.
"It obviously wasn’t looking its best, so I put it into a tub of hot soapy water for two days and every few hours I was taking it out, rinsing it, scrubbing it with a toothbrush and then putting it back in to soak.
"It certainly needed a good soaking and scrubbing before I dared even smell it, let alone put it back on."
Vet Annelies De Vos said Stevie was lucky she had swallowed something so small.
She said: "As you can see from the X-rays, Stevie had definitely eaten the owner’s ring but, luckily for her, we could see the ring had not caused any internal damage and would pass through naturally within a few days.
"So, Stevie went home and we all just had to wait and see.
"Every day we were in contact see how she was doing and if the ring had appeared and on day four the owners contacted us to give us all the good news."
Do you have a dog story to tell? Contact nia.dalton@reachplc.com.
