Dog swallows metal pole and survives

[Photo: Framlingham Vets]

Here’s a dog that takes the top prize for weird things swallowed without causing any serious damage.

Framlingham Vets in the U.K. posted an eye-catching photo to Twitter. It shows an x-ray of a dog’s body with what appears to be a long stick running through it.

“Guess the foreign body removed from a dog today?” the tweet reads, along with the hashtags #vetlife #dogseatweirdstuff.

It turns out a four-month-old Labrador swallowed the metal pole from a windmill garden ornament. After his owners noticed the half-eaten ornament in his kennel, they rushed him to the vet.

The dog’s surgeon, Dr. Ben Garland, says the pup didn’t appear to be in any pain when he was brought in, aside from being a bit “dribbly” and “embarrassed.”

Dr. Garland managed to take out the 45 cm pole from the dog’s stomach during a 45-minute procedure. The operation involved making an incision in the dog’s neck to remove the pole, which was lodged behind its windpipe.

“I’ve removed a lot of things from dogs’ stomachs, but nothing quite as spectacular as this,” he told the BBC.

The pup managed to avoid any organ damage and was released two days after his surgery. The windmill, on the other hand, didn’t survive.