Items of clothing are fairly popular, gloves and socks seem to be favourites, though I do recall having to remove a bra, underwire and all!
Of course the majority of things causing an obstruction are pretty mundane and of little interest – bits of s
eaweed or unrecognisable pieces of material.
Whatever the cause, the pets are usually brought to us when symptoms develop, abdominal pain and unable to keep food and water down. If the offending article is not obvious on palpation of the abdomen an x-ray will usually provide enough information to warrant going to surgery.
Every now and then we get a case that doesn't follow the norm, after all that is what makes vetting so interesting.
Casper is a particularly playful Labrador pup who appeared to be in perfect health, demonstrating no unusual behaviour that might lead his owners to suspect that anything was wrong. Unfortunately a four-inch long darning needle with thread attached had gone missing and after a very thorough search and by a process of elimination, Casper was the most likely candidate.
Sure enough, survey x-rays revealed the impressive needle in Casper's stomach, not a needle in a haystack, but quite an impressive sword swallowing act none the less.
With holey socks still to repair there was only one thing left to do, open Casper up and remove the needle. It is easy to make light of the incident with the benefit of hind sight but in truth Casper is quite a lucky fellow. The muscular contractions of the stomach and intestine are easily powerful enough to force the needle to perforate the bowel, ultimately leading to a much more serious problem. The perforation would inevitably result in the leakage of stomach contents into the sterile abdomen resulting in a painful peritonitis and if untreated death.
It always amazes me what makes dogs swallow such things. I guess items of clothing will smell of their owners and socks are a bit like some of the raggy toys; but why a darning needle?
Casper probably got hold of the thread first and once this started to go down, the needle was doomed to follow.
After preparation for surgery, my colleague, Jean Paul, soon had Casper open and was easily able to locate the large needle within the dog's stomach.
A tiny incision through the muscular wall was all that was required to remove the offending piece of metal and this should heal quite literally within hours.
Traditionally, patients that have had incisions into stomach or intestine would be starved for several days following surgery to reduce the risk of leakage of food into the abdomen.
However, modern research has showed that feeding actually stimulates healing and consequently Casper was heartily tucking into a bowl of food as soon as he had sufficiently recovered from his anaesthetic.
Apparently still completely oblivious to the potentially serious nature of his plight, he bounced home within hours of being on the operating table as if nothing had happened.
Labradors are often described as the dustbins of the canine world but Casper takes the biscuit.
Most importantly, Casper's mum was able to get back to darning socks now that she had her needle back, though in future she will no doubt be more careful about leaving it out of her pet's reach when not in use.
