We were down on a floating
dock this evening after dinner just hanging around enjoying the bay and our dog crept around a corner for a few seconds. I called her back to see about a foot of monofilament hanging out of her mouth and she started coughing. I grabbed her, knowing exactly what had happened and pried her mouth open. I could just see the hook with a chunk of stinky squid on it, stuck in the back of her tongue. I pulled gently (GENTLY!) on the line but it was in there so I didn't pull any more. I tried to get my fingers on the hook to push it out so that I could retrieve it but it was too deep and I couldn't reach it. I set the dog down and she coughed some more. I hoped that she could cough it up but she couldn't. She bit the line off and swallowed the hook.
I grabbed her and ran up the
ramp towards the car and yelled for my wife to get our kid up the
ramp. Our boy is in a wheelchair so he couldn't run, she had to push him up.
We got in the truck, I threw the wheelchair in the back and we hauled ass to the vet. ER.
At the vet's office they gave us a couple of different options. One was the very expensive option of putting her under and using a
scope to look in her stomach and retrieve the hook. I would have done that even though it's $1000.00 but the second option actually sounded better. They fed her four cotton balls smeared around in baby
food. Something that smelled like vienna sausages (I refuse to capitalize vienna sausages much as I am unwilling to capitalize chase bank because I hate them both).
The theory is that her stomach won't break down the cotton balls and they will cover the
fish hook and allow it to ease it's way out without any damage if we're lucky. If it is unsuccessful she will need surgery but in the interim we're on poop watch. The biggest reason that we chose the cotton balls rather than the
scope is because we need to know if it works. If something like this happens while we're cruising it will be good to have a non-surgical solution available.
They recommend that we be sure to
monitor her poops and check for the
fish hook until we find it and that we keep a close eye on her. They said that if she's having problems we'll know it. She'll stop eating, maybe vomit, feel listless and unwilling to play, basically the same as any of us with a fish hook in our guts would but without the whining and complaining.
I'll let you know how it proceeds.