Barney

Be careful what you eat

Barney came feeling very sorry for himself with a tummy ache, very quiet, vomiting regularly, often just after eating and not doing so well at all.

We admitted him to hospital and after some blood tests and a complete examination we anaesthetised him and took him for x-rays of him abdomen.

The x-ray images showed that there wasn’t much food inside him. On the image below you can see lots of loops of intestine with a gas filled lumen.

Overlying the back of his rib cage 2/3 of the way down you can see a narrow, very white crescent shape. This is part of an object, foreign material, sitting in the exit of his stomach into the duodenum. No wonder he had been being sick.

At surgery we had to open Barney’s stomach and guess what we found? It turned out to be cone shaped piece of green and yellow plastic which was the end of the tail from a child’s toy dinosaur. No wonder he hadn’t been feeling well. And every time he ate the food pushed the tail-piece further into the end of the stomach blocking it up, so Barney couldn’t really keep anything down.

SUCCESS

After his operation Barney felt so much better that he was able to go home the same day and managed to eat straight away.

We all need to be careful what we let our dogs play with and what we leave lying around. Ingestion of foreign material is reasonably common in many dogs and, if a complete obstruction occurs then this can be life threatening. Over the years we have removed many objects – balls, plastic carrier bags, knickers, needle and thread, knitting needles etc.

This case offers another good reason why you should think about Pet Insurance. These kind of problems can happen commonly and major abdominal surgery and aftercare can add up quickly. Our staff can advise you about different Insurance policies and what they offer. We can also introduce you to insurance with PetPlan – one of the best known Pet Insurance Companies with an excellent reputation.