The
Golden Retriever is a popular and favorite dog breed with external beauty that
is a reflection of its inner beauty. The Golden Retriever’s “happy-to-be-alive”
personality and “golden heart” fits well into many families. Just when I thought I had seen it all, along
comes “Waylon,” a Golden Retriever, of course, and the story of his missing
Gumabone.
At
a year of age and 76 pounds, Waylon was growing into a true Golden Retriever---happy-go-lucky,
and playful. In an effort to keep the
much younger Waylon entertained, his human grandmother had given him a six inch
Gumabone, made of rubber, to chew. As a
young pup, the Gumabone was an appropriate and thoughtful chew toy. As a young adult, this Gumabone was
definitely no longer “Waylon-sized.”
Waylon
had stopped playing with his Gumabone as he grew older, although it was still available
to him. Interestingly, he never actually
chewed on this toy. Then, one day at
Grandma’s house, the toy that was ignored for so long, suddenly became the
center of Waylon’s attention, as he tossed it around repeatedly. And, then it happened. The Gumabone no longer “thudded” to the
floor, alarming Grandma, who, after searching high and low, could not find the
object of Waylon’s affection.
Grandma
could not find the Gumabone because it was hidden…in Waylon’s stomach! Waylon had swallowed the Gumabone whole. One
would expect that this would be a terrible ordeal for Waylon. With uncertainty
about whether Waylon had actually swallowed the toy, his family elected to give
him a 24-48 hour observation period during which Waylon acted perfectly
normal.
The
next step was to take x-rays to try to identify the Gumabone inside Waylon, but
the x-rays were inconclusive. Waylon
appeared to have a lot of food in his stomach and intestines so a follow-up barium
study was postponed a day. In the
meantime, Waylon continued to act fit as a fiddle---not vomiting, and
eliminating normal stools that all family members were directed to inspect in
detail.
Lo
and behold, the phone call came afterhours on a Saturday, the day after the
x-rays were taken. Waylon had vomited up
the Gumabone---five days after ingestion---not a tooth mark on it, in its
entirety. I couldn’t believe my ears as
his grandma shared the incredible news with me.
Waylon continues to act very normally to this day, just as he had up
until the moment he vomited up his “prize.”
Feeling
thankful to not have to do exploratory surgery on Waylon, I answered an
emergency phone call the next evening from Madeline’s mom. “Madeline” the cat,
was playing with two feet of string which she proceeded to swallow right before
her owners’ eyes. Panicking and distressed,
Madeline soon bit the string, breaking it, with one foot of the string inside
her, and one foot outside her.
When
animals swallow strings, these linear foreign bodies tend to exit the stomach
to begin a journey through the intestines.
As they travel through the intestines, strings cause a “bunching” effect
for the many intestinal loops, until they bunch so much that they cause an
obstruction. When the loops can bunch no more, linear foreign bodies “saw”
through the intestinal lining, resulting in potentially life-threatening holes
in the intestinal tract.
The
decision was made to explore Madeline’s abdomen the next day to retrieve the
string before it could begin its accordion effect on her intestines. As I
opened Madeline’s abdomen, I remember asking myself, “What if I can’t find the
string?” I began my search with
Madeline’s stomach…no string there. Next
I ran my fingers back and forth over the entire length of Madeline’s large and
small intestines…no string or “bunching” to be found.
Considering
less than 24 hours had passed since Madeline had swallowed the string, I told
myself it had to be in her somewhere.
Her owners were certain Madeline had not vomited it up and there was no
evidence that she had passed it rectally.
So where was the string?
I
again reviewed the only area in Madeline’s intestines that had any contents,
the colon. I thought I could see a
length of wadded up string along side some feces through the colon wall. Gratefully, I realized the string had made a
very rapid trek through the small intestines to the safety of the larger colon
where it would soon be eliminated by Madeline. And it was…a few days later
another happy phone call was made to an even more delighted veterinarian.
The
moral of these stories is to make your pet’s environment as safe as possible. Just
as kids will be kids, dogs will be dogs, and cats will be cats. If it’s small
enough to be swallowed, it will be by that happy-go-lucky puppy or that curious
cat.
Now,
if you will excuse me…I have to take away the Kong toy that my puppy, “Jimmy,”
is eating.
Author: Dr. Bonnie Jones
Image courtesy of savit keawtavee at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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