Jack Thornton

The dog's motto: If you can't eat it, ask why not and accept no answers.

I'm sure every veterinarian can recount tales bizarre regarding things swallowed by their patients. Early in my practice career a lady called, absolutely sure that her dog had swallowed her diamond ring.

Upon reviewing an abdominal x-ray, there was no ring but a twisted piece of metal in the dog's stomach prompted her to exclaim, "There's the cotter pin from the lawn mower. I've wondered what happened to it."

Sometimes foreign objects from clothing to rocks become stuck in the alimentary canal, usually the small intestine. Such articles can reside harmlessly within a stomach indefinitely.



Pickle pup

During surgery on a Labrador retriever to remove a portion of a rubber bone lodged in the upper intestine, before closing I routinely checked to see if I'd missed anything.

I could feel two large round objects within the stomach, which turned out to be pickle balls, each slightly smaller than a tennis ball.

The owner later remarked that he remembered missing them months earlier.

Veterinarians frequently receive emergency calls about ingested items. My friend Rich called, concerned after he witnessed his Chesapeake swallow his son's hacky sack, a leather-bound, egg-sized kick toy popular among teenagers.

After suggesting Vaseline to lubricate and therefore help facilitate passage, waiting was the only realistic option. Just over three months later, Rich called me to announce triumphantly that his dog had just regurgitated the hacky sack.



Fork in the dog

Another client called at night very upset that his Labrador had just swallowed a table fork after he set his dinner plate and utensil upon the kitchen floor for the dog to lick and enjoy.

Finding this a bit incredulous, I asked if he was sure that the fork wasn't elsewhere. He assured me it was not. Mystified, I reassured him that if it was going to be a problem, we'd know fairly soon.

I didn't hear back from him, but a few weeks later we bumped into each other.

"Whatever happened with the fork?" I asked. He explained that within about 20 minutes his dog retched three or four times and returned it.

Sometimes string, twine or articles of clothing can create serious intestinal obstructions known as linear foreign bodies.



It too could pass

Probably the most amazing feat of alimentary prowess of which I've heard was related to me by my friend Mikey in Poulsbo.

One day he noticed his female German shorthair hunched up in the yard, trying to defecate, unable to pass what appeared to be an article of clothing hanging to the ground from his pet's posterior.

My friend was forced to manually assist in delivering what eventually turned out to be a brassiere, wire re-enforcements and all.

Because his shorthair previously had pulled off and chewed articles of clothing from his next door neighbor's clothesline, he assumed it belonged to the neighbor but tactfully refrained from returning it.

The lesson here is to try to stay abreast of any dangerous articles your dog may try to ingest.

Jack Thornton is a semiretired veterinarian practicing in eastern Clallam County.