My dog is having surgery to remove a ball

[roastednuts123]

The gorgeous but stupid animal is 8 years old Ffs. I'm scared out of my mind. She's never had to go through anything like this before and I'm now sat in the car outside the vet hospital waiting for her to be allowed in.
I desperately need to hear from anyone who has been through this and can reassure me or cheer me up. We couldn't have kids so this dog is our world.

Is it something they performed in the vets when you worked there?

Yes. There wasn't a nearby vet hospital, so they did most things themselves apart from really tricky stuff like spinal surgery or courses of chemotherapy. That type of thing was sent to the veterinary college. For an out-of-hours ball swallowing the on-call vet would just ring the nearest vet nurse to come in and assist.

It was a while ago - I think there's a lot more specialist provision available these days so referral is more common.

(For an indication of just how long ago, it was - the on-call arrangements will give you a clue. There was a mobile phone for the on-call vet. Just the one - it was passed on to whoever was on each night. It had a shoulder strap for carrying it.)

It looked like the one on the far left of this timeline of phones: https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/cbadec1b403b2811d7da0f81747b8e8f

Basically a car battery with a handset.

My daft dog liked to swallow stones, lots of stones, we could hear them clanking in his stomach. An operation removed them, he was fine. We had to muzzle him on walks to stop him from doing it again..

Your post is one of the most useful things I’ve ever read on here. Thanks for the explanation 😊

The items I've removed from dogs' digestive tracts include:
toys
rope
string
hoofs
antlers
bones
rawhide chews
kelp
stones
sand
clay
cactus spikes
hair (most recently a hairdresser's dog who ate a great deal of hair)
clothing, mainly knickers
sanitary protection
nappies
corn cobs
peach stones
bamboo and metal skewers
kitchen cloths and sponges
a mobile phone
about a quarter of a desktop phone
sewing needles
a large ball of wool
a knife
the dog's own puppy (aaargh)
and probably other things I can't remember.

Labs are certainly the biggest offenders.
The biggest thing is watching her in the future as there's clearly not much she won't swallow.

I'm pretty sure she'll be fine.

Why would the dog have destroyed her puppy?

Also please tell me it was a brick phone and not a massive Samsung!

My quite small dog came down in the night, knocked over the bin, and ate an entire large pizza box. We only realized a couple of days later as she failed to poo and became increasingly lethargic. The vet knew it was a pizza box as you could still read the PRINT so clearly she didn't chew very well.
We were terrified. She was absolutely fine. It cost around $6000 but thankfully her insurance paid.
Sending healing vibes to your dog.

I know a dog that is currently recovering from surgery to remove a kebab skewer from his stomach! He's the sweetest boy ever, but not the brightest, and is healing fine. Your floof will be just fine 🙂

I just wish I knew how long it was going to take as we've still not heard anything. She went for surgery about 2.5 hours ago

Hope your dog's alright. Scary when they are unwell :(

That list above from @villainousbroodmare ... Argh. My dog is devious and will find any thing left around, she has had a go at most of those things but is large and mostly spits out inedible stuff after the transitory joy of the theft and a quick chew.

Hope you get some news soon @roastednuts123

We finally got through and she's only in surgery now as they've had loads of emergencies apparently. So fingers crossed. Thanks everyone again for the replies which have been so helpful to me !

Best of luck OP... sending you and your girl all the positive vibes for a successful surgery x

Praying for your darling dog

Our idiot dog ate a child's dock, a Lego action man and 27p in change on a dog walk I paid a professional to take him on.: with instructions not to take his bloody muzzle off because he eats shit and she misunderstood and thought it was because he wasn't friendly..

Cost us £1600. Well her!

Our old lab cross ate everything he could his nose get close to, including most of a Celebrations advent calendar with the chocolates still in their wrappers.
I didn’t know he’d eaten a trainer sock one time until the evidence came out the other end. He seemed to be struggling a bit and on closer inspection it looked as though he was being sponsored by Nike.

Wishing your girl a speedy recovery.

DDog had an operation a few years ago to remove a foreign object from his gut, they never identified what the chewed plastic thing was when they finally removed it. DDog took a bit of time to recover so vets kept him in for a few days with the nurses popping in to the local Waitrose to find him some meaty treats to try and encourage to him! Vets bill was scary and it was just before Christmas. We threatened to eat him instead of turkey as Christmas might be cancelled. Luckily insurance came up trumps. DDog did make a full recovery but still tries to pick up all sorts of crap when out on walks.

Fingers crossed all goes well

Our first dog ate a massive men's hiking sock at 9 months. Afterwards, the vet marvelled at the fact the sock was fully intact when she removed it - apparently he hadn't even bothered chewing. I understood later when I saw him get hold of a baguette. He just tilted his head back and swallowed it whole, like a sword swallower. He lived a very happy 14 years chomping his way through basically everything he came across, edible or inedible.

Sending good wishes to your girl! Good luck keeping her quiet for the next couple of weeks...

*our insurance also covered it

Will share my own DDog surgery story to help you pass the time!

My girl (now passed 4yrs ago, I still miss her so much, she was my wing woman and co-mom 🥲) was lying down on the sofa one night and saw she was bleeding from her vagina. She'd been in heat about 1 month prior (only 1yr old and I hadn't neutered her yet). Rushed to the out of hours vets and turned out she had a false pregnancy (didn't know that was a thing!) and she had developed an infection somehow. She needed emergency surgery for a full hysterectomy. They said it would be tough and to prepare for the worst just in case.

I brought her for a walk before surgery, with her drip still in, bawling crying all the way and trying to hide it from her.

Surgery was successful but was warned her recovery could be difficult and she was still in the danger zone... brought her home and she slept soundly in the kitchen all night. Me and DS went to the farmers market early and left her sleeping for less than an hour. Came home, walked into the kitchen... and she was literally on top of the kitchen table eating mini muffins we'd left, in a plastic container she'd broken into! I've never cried with such happiness, couldn't even be mad, just knew she'd be okay after that 🤣 I'll never forget the relief I felt 😅

Thanks so much for sharing your stories and good wishes. We got a call at 2.30 from the vet to say the op went ok. There was some'spillage' though but hopefully the antibiotics will sort. Will see how today goes and lots of needed!

Yay, that's great news @roastednuts123 So glad to hear she got through it okay x Wishing her the best with the recovery!

Glad she's out of the op. I'm pretty fortunate that my ddog doesn't eat silly things (he delicately opens the chocolate wrappers to extract treats!) but he's cost £10k in vets bills for reconstructive surgery because he run's about chasing a ball, tossing it himself, stupidly fast basically, thankfully he's insured. Hes also now on lead walks only, upsetting but it's for his good

Hope she gets well soon @roastednuts123

@gogohmm if your dog is eating chocolate you need to be careful (unless dog safe chocolate), as is very toxic to dogs.