British vets list the 10 weirdest items eaten by pets January 15, 2009

Britain’s People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, a charity that provides free veterinary care to the pets of low-income Brits, has released a list of the weirdest items its vets have removed from pets’ stomachs.

The top 10 items, according to the Telegraph:

1. Ten-inch tent peg
2. Christmas decoration (star-shaped)
3. Kitchen knife
4. Alphabet fridge magnets
5. Man’s wig
6. Ann Summers underwear
7. Bell
8. Fishing hook
9. Socks
10. Rubber duck

So just how big a deal is it when a pet ingests a foreign object? Very big, says WebVet.com, which offers this advice:

Intestinal obstruction is an emergency that requires immediate veterinary attention! Make sure to give your veterinarian a complete history, especially if your pet has eaten any foreign material. Your vet will perform a physical examination and take x-rays to look for signs of obstruction. Treatment consists of abdominal surgery to remove the obstructing material and to examine the full length of the intestine. Sections of intestine that appear dead will need to be removed, with the healthy ends sewn together.

To prevent future rubber-duck-and-underwear-eating calamities, the People’s Dispensary offers a handy downloadable PDF of common (and less common) indoor safety hazards and ways to protect your pet.

Dog eats 15 baby pacifiers (and survives!), CA January 15, 2009

Source: LAUnleashed, Jan 13, 2009

From the “how on Earth?” files comes the story of Lulu the bulldog: a medical marvel with what can only be described as a cast-iron stomach.

Lulu’s owner, Jennifer Zwart of the suburban St. Louis area, noticed that her baby’s pacifiers were disappearing at an alarming rate,  but she never imagined the reason they went missing.  St. Louis’ Riverfront Times explains:

Then Zwart saw Lulu licking a pacifier. Moments later, the binky was gone. “She took Lulu to the vet and they did an X-ray that showed a large, unknown mass in the dog’s stomach,” explains [VPI Pet Insurance] spokesman Grant Biniasz. “During surgery the doctors just kept pulling out one binky after another. Some of them were black due to decomposition. They even took pictures of the pacifiers. We believe the dog had been eating them for at least six months even though she showed no ill effects.”

In all, veterinarians removed 15 pacifiers, a bottle cap and a piece of a basketball.  “They had never seen anything like it,” Zwart said.

Lulu’s feat of gastric daring led VPI to name her insurance claim the most unusual of the more than 75,000 claims it received in December.  (A dog that ate several wigs and one that ate a packaged fire log each received “honorable mentions.”)

Fortunately for Lulu, she “handled the surgery very well,” according to her owner, who assured VPI that pacifiers would no longer be left where she can get them.