Top 10 Items Surgically Removed from Pets

I am reposting this article from Animal Radio's December 2007 Newsletter. For fun I highlighted all the the items I have rescued out of Mugsy's mouth. For some reason he likes to swallow whole items. Mostly I have found because there is a daily eating competition going on between him and Azia.

Top 10 Items Surgically Removed from Pets
If you thought your dryer was eating your socks, guess again! It seems the number one item swallowed by dogs that had to be surgically removed are socks.

The top 10 list is as follows:

1. Socks
2. Underwear
3. Panty Hose
4. Rocks
5. Balls
6. Chew Toys
7. Corn Cobs
8. Bones
9. Hair Ties/Ribbons
10. Sticks

Other items that animals have ingested are nails, sewing needles and nipples from baby bottles. But let's not forget remote controls, pagers, hearing aids, drywall, snail bait, batteries, rubber bands, toy cars, and sand with bacon grease poured on it.

Some of these items will pass through their digestive system naturally, but others can become lodged in their intestinal tracts resulting in pain, vomiting, or internal injury. In those cases, surgery may be a necessity.

The best thing to do is to make sure these items are unavailable to our pets. Make sure there are plenty of items available for your pet to chew on. And, you can always spray something on the items to make them taste bed such as "Bitter Yuck No Chew" spray.

Mugsy and I hope none of you have had to have emergency surgery on your pets, it wouldn't be any fun at all!