Alaskan Malamute Izzy was only three and a half months old – and her new owners had only had her around a month – when she started repeatedly vomiting at home one day. Very concerned, her owners brought her to the practice. Her abdomen (tummy) was sore, she was still being sick, had passed some string-like material in her faeces and we could feel a ‘thickening’ in her guts, consistent with a foreign body.
An x-ray did not confirm what the object was so it was agreed that Izzy needed exploratory abdominal surgery (a laparotomy) to investigate and remove the obstruction.
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Izzy’s guts prior to the removal of the foreign body
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During surgery we found a long, thick band of material strung through a section of Izzy’s guts. At either end of the foreign body, we could feel a larger, more solid mass, and joining each accumulation, a thinner ‘string’. This is known as a linear foreign body. As the guts try to push the lower clump down and the top clump remains stuck, the string in between becomes taught and straight and the guts begin to concertina along the string. Left like that for any length of time the string starts to ‘cheese-wire’ through the gut lining, which can potentially lead to disastrous results.
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The foreign body – released – is being extracted through a single incision in the guts
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Thankfully there was no gut perforation in Izzy’s case and we were able to ‘milk’ the two clumps of material together and remove them through one surgical hole in Izzy’s intestine.
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The remnants of not such a tasty between meals snack!
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Izzy’s guts are carefully inspected after removal of the foreign body. There is some bruising an inflammation but no permanent damage.
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Izzy made a wonderful recovery and is once again a mischievous puppy!