While Susie’s name has been changed to protect the innocent, her story shows how important it is to act quickly, asking your veterinarian for help if you ever have any doubt about the situation.
Susie’s issue has to do an awful lot with the fact that she’s a six-month-old doodle puppy. Being a puppy, she’s very playful and likes to put things in her mouth. This particular day, Susie decided a pin cushion/tomato, complete with pins, was her chew toy of choice.
Susie’s mom called as soon as she figured out what happened; after just a few minutes of thought, she headed my way with said silly pup. An X-ray of Susie’s belly showed what we feared: two bright shiny metal lines in Susie – one in her stomach, one already in her intestines. Susie’s options were to see if the pins/needles would pass or go get them surgically.
A few of my acupuncturist veterinary colleagues have had the occasional patient who did not like acupuncture and would eat a needle. These dogs were fed a big piece of bread and monitored for output. Invariably the needle would pass. While acupuncture needles are not the same as sewing needles, the shape is quite similar. Hoping for good luck, we fed Susie several pieces of bread and monitored her output overnight. By morning, Susie had passed a thin sewing pin. Unfortunately, the thicker shape was still in her stomach and had not moved at all overnight.
Susie needed abdominal surgery.
Because Susie also had shown some pain and had made a little bit of retching noises in the night, we knew time was of the essence. We prepped her for surgery immediately, and made an incision up high on her belly close to where the stomach is under the ribs. We found that there was indeed a pin stuck in her stomach that had gone all the way through and was poking her liver.
This is quite similar to cattle who have what’s called hardware disease. These cows eat a nail and it goes into the rumen (1st stomach) and stays there and pokes through into the liver and chest cavity, can create terrible infection, pneumonia, and death.
Luckily for Susie, her mom didn’t wait and we acted as soon as we knew there was a problem. Susie recovered immediately, and I mean immediately, as she was back to playing within three hours of surgery. We tried to keep her calm but she just wasn’t going to have it!
Luckily for Susie, her owner acted right away. If her owner had waited a few days to see what happened things could’ve been a lot different. The problems could have ranged from worse pain to torn intestines, stomach, liver, to massive infection and death. Instead, Susie’s back to being bouncy and needing to be monitored to keep things out of her fuzzy puppy mouth. I am so thankful to have been able to help this sweet girl.
Dr. Cathy Alinovi DVM
As a practicing veterinarian, Dr. Cathy treated 80% of what walked in the door — not with expensive prescriptions — but with adequate nutrition. Now retired from private practice, her commitment to pets hasn’t waned and she looks forward to impacting many more pet parents through her books, research, speaking and consulting work. Learn more at drcathyvet.com
Hope Williams
December 4, 2014 at 11:05 am
Is Dr. Cathy Alinovi your Dr. Karen Becker Susan?
Susan Thixton
December 4, 2014 at 11:13 am
Best I can say is Dr. Cathy is a vet I admire a great deal. She is fearless when it comes to standing up for what is right for animals – and she’s now going regularly to AAFCO meetings advocating for all animals. I think she’s great!
Ellie
December 4, 2014 at 2:27 pm
This reminds me of a cat we had some years ago, back when cassette tapes were popular.(that should date me) We had several cassettes stacked on the stereo shelf. This cat decided she had a taste for the tape inside the cassettes. I noticed one day that she had not eaten and was in obvious distress and vomiting.
A trip to the vet found nothing abnormal. We took her home and she got worse. The vet did surgery in order to try and find the problem and found a large amount of cassette tape in her belly. He followed it up her throat and found it was wrapped tightly around the base of her tongue in a manner that kept the tape from being swallowed. The poor dear had been suffering now for several days.
She did recover well from the horrible event and all cassette tapes were placed in a holder that had a firm top on it to keep her from further indulging in her pastime.
Sometimes we forget that the things we find harmless in our homes can be a source of extreme danger for our pets.
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Peg
December 10, 2014 at 4:29 pm
Then there are the cats who are dental floss fiends.
I think I have all 7 of them!!!!
I must wrap it in a tissue and put it in the locking trash pail in the kitchen.
Those buggers wail outside the door when I am flossing………this despite the fact that they have 8.4 million dollars worth of cat toys.
Ellie, thank you for the heads up about the cassette tapes…….yes, I too have them in my home and they have been put behind a locking cabinet door.