A Cumbrian vet is warning owners to be vigilant after two dogs from two separate families ate baby care products.
Both dogs are the same breed – Cavalier King Charles spaniels – and both needed emergency surgery after swallowing a baby monitor and a baby dummy respectively.
Graham Lewis, small animal vet at Paragon Veterinary Group based in Dalston, near Carlisle, said: “Some dogs do seem to be prone to wanting to swallow objects and repeat offenders are quite common.
“As a parent with a young toddler myself I understand how it happens. But a foreign body can be serious and even fatal if it is not treated quickly.”
Pipo the four-year-old Cavalier lives with his family at Garlands in Carlisle.
He needed emergency surgery at Paragon Veterinary Group after swallowing a baby oxygen monitor sock.
Owner Felicity Kierman said: “We had a device which tracks the baby’s oxygen and heart rate. It’s a sock that goes on the baby’s foot and contains a monitoring tracker.
“We had all popped out and left Pipo at home when my phone went off saying the sock had been removed from its base station.”
The sock was found chewed, on the floor, but the monitor itself which contains a small battery was nowhere to be seen.
“We thought there’s no way he could have swallowed that, but we couldn’t find it anywhere,” said Felicity. “We took him to the vets to double check.”
Graham said: “We gave him medication to make him sick to try and bring the monitor up, but it was lodged in the exit of his stomach, and it had to be taken out surgically.”
Pipo recovered well, but Felicity says they didn’t buy a new monitor.
“He had tried to get hold of it a few times in the past, and he has eaten the baby’s dummies before as well. We have to be very careful that he can’t get hold of them,” she said.
Another Cavalier has been in the same trouble.
Chester is 11 months old and lives with his family in Currock. Paragon vets had to come to the rescue with emergency surgery after he ate the teat from a baby dummy when he was three months old.
Graham said: “He presented with signs of a foreign body, and we removed the end of a dummy which was lodged at the junction of the small and large intestine.
“He came back two days later after doing the same thing and we made him sick, which wasn’t without risk given he was post-surgery, but he brought up the dummy end. The owners saw him do the same thing two months later and we made him sick and it came back.”
Owner Hayleigh Gale says Chester is best friends with her two-year-old son Benjamin.
“They are the cutest thing together, they cuddle and play and have the most beautiful bond,” she said. “But we have to be so careful about the dummies. Chester steals them and eats the plastic bit that the kids would suck.
“The first time we had no idea what he had done. Now we try to make sure he doesn’t get hold of them but it’s hard when you have a toddler who drops things.”
Graham said he also sees other types of dogs, including cocker spaniels and Labradors, repeatedly swallowing objects.
“The sooner they see a vet the better,” said Graham. “If a foreign body gets properly lodged it can cause necrosis of the intestines, meaning we have to remove part of the intestine as well as the foreign body.
“If the dog is left for a few days, it becomes fairly critical we get in there as quickly as possible. It can lead to peritonitis which is when the intestine ruptures and the gut contents get into the abdominal cavity. That can be fatal and requires surgery and a long hospital stay.
“If your dog is off their food, is quiet, or is vomiting and nothing is coming out of the back end, that is a huge warning sign.
“When it has been left for a few days the surgery and hospital costs can spiral.”
