Ernie was presented as an emergency, as he was vomiting blood. It was suspected that he had a foreign body.

The term foreign body refers to any non-food object located within the digestive tract of a dog or cat. Pets have the tendency to play with or chew on non-food objects and, in the process of doing so, these objects can be inadvertently ingested.

An abdominal radiograph was taken, where thankfully we were able to identify a foreign body sat in the stomach.

An endoscopy was then performed to see if we could retrieve the items without a surgical procedure, but the foreign body was too large and irregularly shaped to remove with the scope safely.

An exploratory laparotomy was performed to remove the foreign body from the stomach. We remove 3 pieces of a plastic toy he had swallowed!

Ernie stayed the night with us and went home the next day. We hope Ernie has learnt his lesson!