Saturday, May 9, 2009

Alphabet soup?


I know dogs will eat almost anything. My Labrador once ate half a chocolate bar, one of my socks and half a bunch of grapes, all at one sitting (and then brought it all up on the carpet, an hour later! He looked rather surprised that I was upset about it!). Still, a Labrador in England appears to have more . . . er, scholastic tastes than the norm.

A puppy had to have emergency surgery after eating an entire alphabet of fridge magnets.

Six-month old Jack had just returned home from a castration operation on Thursday when he swallowed the magnets.

The yellow labrador was taken to the PDSA's charity hospital in Plymouth, Devon, by his owner the next morning, where he was immediately operated on.

Owner Emma Keers says she will not buy any more magnets - and has banished Jack to sleep away from the fridge.

She said: "Jack was sleepy after the (castration) anaesthetic so I put him in the kitchen to recover overnight.

"The next morning I noticed the whole alphabet was missing from the fridge, though Jack wasn't showing any signs of being ill.

"He can be quite greedy though."

Vet Robert Newcombe said about 30 pieces of chewed plastic were found in Jack.

"We had to operate straight away with both a gastrotomy, where we opened up his tummy, and an enterotomy, to remove more pieces of fridge magnets that had made their way to his intestine.

"The letters were well chewed and not easy to identify."


Yep, Labradors are good chewers! I guess this puts Jack among the letterati, doesn't it?



Peter

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had a Lab that ate a sewing needle with some thread attached.

My wife had put it up where she though the pooch couldn't get it, but the dog was more agile than she thought.

A quick trip to the vets for x-rays didn't show anything. The vet told us to watch the dog and his droppings closely.

The next day out poops the needle with thread still attached.

My wife was more upset than the dog.

Same dog ate a gardening glove whole. He passed that with a bit of discomfort :>

Gerry

LabRat said...

I used to work at a vet clinic. When it came to strange things consumed and surgically removed, Labradors were the absolute and total champs. The most incomprehensible ones were a chlorine puck from a pool sweeper and a brillo pad. (Which I think might actually have been the same dog.)

I will never own a Lab. My healthy, sensible Akitas are vet bills enough!