Dogs and cats can eat many things that they shouldn’t. The most common symptoms that you may notice are vomiting, reduced appetite, and possibly abdominal pain. We can confirm the presence of a gastric (stomach) foreign body by x-rays or abdominal ultrasound and then can proceed to perform endoscopy. Endoscopy involves general anesthesia to keep your pet comfortable during the procedure and then we will use a small camera to go into their stomach through their mouth. Once we are in the stomach, we will visualize the foreign object with the camera, grab the object with a special tool that fits down the scope, and then pull the object out of the stomach via the mouth. If there are multiple objects, then we will repeat this process until the stomach is clear.
Doing a gastric foreign body scope is one of my favorite things to do. It is so rewarding to immediately make the patient feel better and help them avoid surgery to remove the object. Cats often like to eat hair ties and I have removed almost a 100 hair ties from a cat in a single procedure before. They often don’t show any symptoms until the amount of hair ties hits a critical threshold when the cat starts to feel obstructed. Dogs vary on what they like to ingest. Some like to get into the trash (kitchen or bathroom), some like socks (or underwear!), and some will eat more dangerous things like batteries, pennies, or electronics. One of my favorite scopes has been to remove an AirPod from a puppy. The battery inside the AirPod can be very dangerous if the gastric acid starts to break it down, and fortunately the puppy’s mom realized the AirPod was swallowed when the AirPod would only pair with her iPhone when the puppy was nearby.
Oxford Veterinary Hospital is one of the few places in the Cincinnati and Dayton areas who provides this service. Give us a call and we will be happy to help!
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