Plastic ice-cream spoon swallowed by pup extricated by vets

Pune, April 5:  A 12-week-old pet dog, which suddenly fell ill last month, is now recovering after a team of veterinary surgeons successfully extricated a plastic ice-cream spoon she had accidentally swallowed, doctors said on Tuesday.

The Golden Retriever named Nora was rushed to the Pune Small Animal Clinic where Dr. Narendra Pardeshi examined the dog.

Nora's owners, the Shekhar family, said she was perfectly normal, playful and active till mid-March but later was unable to eat, and developed ulcers.

She underwent an x-ray which revealed the plastic spoon embedded in her stomach and Dr. Pardeshi performed a gastroscopy operation, removed the foreign object and Nora has fully recovered.

"On admission in an emergency, the pup was weak, couldn't eat anything and had ulcers in the tummy. After conducting all tests, we performed the procedure on March 29 under anaesthesia," he said.

For the gastroscopy, the medicos used a long flexible tube called gastroscope or endoscope, which has a mini-camera and light at the end to look inside the stomach.

The plastic spoon was located and then removed with the help of forceps passed through the gastroscope, making it a non-invasive procedure lasting just 45 minutes, but saving the life of Nora.

The now-relieved Shekhar family said that Nora has fully recovered to her usual bouncy self, doing all her activities and eating normally now.

Dr. Pardeshi said that plastic is not digestible nor can it break down in the tummy, its sharp edges could get lodged in stomach or intestinal lining leading to inflammation or holes that could be life-threatening.