A Shropshire vet today warned county dog owners over the dangers of throwing sticks after a pet ended up on the operating table with horrific injuries.
Lurcher collie Archie was brought into the Vets Now clinic in Wellington earlier this month by his owners after he collapsed during a trip to Rough Park in Ironbridge.
He had suffered an appalling, but unfortunately common, injury.
The pooch had not appeared injured but on closer inspection a team at the out of hours emergency clinic discovered a stick had disappeared down his throat, causing a huge tear.
The team anaesthetised Archie immediately, removed the stick and gave him supportive care with IV fluids, antibiotics and lots of pain relief before beginning a course of intensive treatment.
The area was too traumatised to treat with surgery at the time but within two days the Vets Now team was able to see the full extent of the damage as the initial trauma had settled down.
Archie, who is 14 months old, received intensive treatment and four days after the incident he was able to receive surgery to repair the torn oesophagus.
Karen Booth, senior veterinary surgeon at Vets Now, said: “Throwing sticks for dogs to chase can result in horrific injuries and each year, many dogs are killed retrieving sticks which are thrown for them.
“The most common injury is caused by the stick tearing through the throat and ripping the oesophagus, like we saw in Archie’s case.
“However, we have also seen cases where the stick rips upwards through the mouth, or penetrates the dog’s eye and we have even seen cases where the stick has gone right through the dog’s torso.
“We strongly advise any owner against throwing sticks for their dog to retrieve and instead throw toys such as balls.”
Archie’s owner, Kevin Watson, of Woodside, said: “Archie is a real livewire, and he often picks up sticks and runs with them when we’re out for a walk.
“I had no idea that this would ever result in such a horrific accident.”
By Lisa Rowley
5 Comments
The trouble is that, no matter how much you tell people not to throw sticks for dogs, they will still do it
I hope Archie has recovered and is fit and well again and maybe fetching a ball, from now on.
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This of course is all well and good, but what about the dogs that collect sticks as they run around? Although you can try to teach them not to, some dogs just never learn. Do hope Archie is going to be ok though.
And ……
one hopes that the ball is not too small, so that if the dog swallows it, it then lodges in its throat, giving a certainty of imminent death far more likely than that from injury from a stick?
Seems there is always a risk in everthing we do? - just common sense required !
I can’t stop my dog eating sticks, plants anything he can get his mouth round. My vet just tells me to stop him and keep him away from anything he might chew. How on earth do i do that! Anyone got any ideas?
As Archie’s owner I would like to thank you all for your comments and I am happy to say that he is on the way to a full recovery. He now has a frisby which goes with him on every walk. I now realise that he just wants something to fetch and has not even looked at a stick since. We have also bought a variety of different toys for around the house and garden and swap them over now and again to give a bit of variety. This also seems to have helped with a problem common to that of sa.