The Tale of a Troublesome Tummy

A frequent visitor of the dog park, our pup Maccabee would often play with rocks while running around with the other dogs.  He’d put them in his mouth, then spit them out and chase after another distraction.  Last Thursday was different.

Although he still was chasing the other dogs and playing with tennis balls like usual, Maccabee happened to sneak several mouthfuls of rocks into his belly.  These were rocks, not gravel, and we didn’t figure out what he’d done until Matthew came home from work and was playing with him.  He happened to poke the dog in the tummy and he heard a weird noise.  He did it again, and this time I heard it too.  It sounded like a bag of marbles knocking into each other in there.  Of course, they weren’t marbles.  They were rocks.

We called our vet, who told us to take him to the Emergency Clinic up in Marietta, and we did.  They took X-rays that showed his stomach was filled with rocks and after much discussion and weighing options, Matthew and I decided that we’d take Maccabee home for the night and take him to our regular vet in the morning.

Morning rolled around and our dog’s stomach still sounded like some kind of deranged New Year’s noisemaker.  We took him to our vet, who took more X-rays and then confirmed what we’d been dreading.  He’d need surgery.  She apologized and said their office was super busy (it was a Saturday) and they wouldn’t be able to do surgery.  So back to the Emergency Clinic we went.

Maccabee was admitted Saturday morning and had surgery Saturday afternoon.  The vet called us after the surgery and assured us that everything had gone well.   In a voice that was a mix of disbelief and excitement she told us:

“We took out 1.5 pounds of rocks from his stomach!  We saved them for you!”

Fantastic.  The dog gets 2 cups of the best dog food for breakfast and dinner, and he still goes and eats 1.5 pounds of rocks for no good reason.

It took Maccabee about two days to recover and we brought him (and the rocks) home on Monday.  We’d originally estimated that he’d eaten maybe 30 or 40 rocks judging by the X-rays and the weight we’d been told.  Oh no, we were way off…Our dog ate NINETY-SIX rocks.  Yes. 96.  WOW.

Needless to say, once he makes a full recovery and gets his stitches out, Maccabee will be wearing a muzzle to prevent this unfortunate occurrence from repeating itself.

We missed our boy while he was gone, even if he is dumber than rocks (pun most definitely intended).

You can see his stitches in this one 🙁

Where they had his IV attached.

Good thing we love him a lot.

The first page of Maccabee’s tab from his stay at the Emergency Clinic.  Yes, his tab had more than one page.

The rocks, in all their glory.  That’s a quarter and a dime up there for size reference.