An x-ray of the mouse ball inside Fizz

A Shropshire dog which chewed through every pair of its owners’ shoes as a pup is still chewing her way through life more than seven years on – only now it’s computer equipment.

Fizz, a bull mastif, is recovering from emergency surgery after X-rays showed she had a “foreign object” inside her. It turned out to be a computer mouse ball she had destroyed four months earlier.

The ball inside the dog’s stomach caused so much pain, Fizz’s owners, Alison and Allan Wood, of The Talbot Inn, St Georges, could not even stroke her.

Alan Wood and Alison Wood, landlord and landlady of the Talbot Inn, Gower Street, St Georges, with their dog, Fizz

Fearing it could be a tumour, the worried couple tried to think what their beloved dog had been chewing lately – but decided Fizz had been well behaved in recent weeks.

Then Mrs Wood said she remembered the remains of the computer mouse they had found and realised the ball must be out of the mouse.

Pleased to have Fizz back home, Mrs Wood, 34, said: “Fizz goes through phases. She will leave stuff alone for months and then she will suddenly start chewing again.

“When she was a puppy she chewed every pair of my shoes but didn’t touch a single pair of my husbands.”

She added: “The mouse was on the computer desk and she ate the whole thing.

“We thought she would pass it through and didn’t think anything more about it until she went in with a water infection. She hasn’t touched anything since and I’m hoping she will never do it again – hopefully she has learned her lesson.”

Mrs Wood said seven-year-old Fizz “flinched” every time the vet at Companion Care at Pets At Home, Wrekin Retail Park in Wellington, stroked her, which encouraged him to do some X-rays. “At first the vet said it was too big for a mouse ball so we thought it was a golf ball. It’s been there for months, bless her.

“She’s quite a character in the pub and known by everyone but doesn’t like spending a lot of time in the pub because she likes her own space,” Mrs Wood said.

By Kirsty Smallman