By Ed Chatterton
A greedy golden retriever had a lucky escape after he swallowed a teddy bear decoration from a Christmas tree.
One-year-old Milo was rushed to the vet for emergency surgery after he scoffed down the ceramic bauble around three weeks ago.
Owners Mike and Rachael Adams were left shocked to discover he had eaten half of the ornament after breaking it into several pieces.
Mischievous Milo was taken to Blaise Veterinary Referral Hospital in the Longbridge area of Birmingham.
He underwent an endoscopical procedure to retrieve the pieces safely from his stomach and four hours later he was finally in the clear.
The cheeky pooch is now back home recovering in time for Christmas where the family have stripped back their tree to just tinsel and lights.
Dad-of-two Mike, 61, a carpenter, said he was alerted to Milo’s antics by his 18-year-old daughter Abbie who caught him in the act.
Mike, of Birmingham, added: “It was about three weeks ago after we’d not long put up the tree.
“Milo has form for this sort of thing and has eaten through about three Sky remotes already so we try and keep things high and out of reach.
“But for some reason he has taken a liking to this Christmas decoration. There’s nothing nice on it, it is just ceramic, so I’m not sure what he was thinking.
“He’s got through about half of it and then my daughter who is home from university collared him in the act.
“Rachael then got home from dropping our son off at school and saw the shards of broken ornament all around the Christmas tree
“We called the vets and they said to bring him in ASAP, at which point you start to panic as you don’t know what damage has been done.
“So I’ve rushed home from work and the vets were lovely, talking us through the various procedures
“But when we left him there, we thought that was it, and we wouldn’t see him again.
“Those few hours were the longest afternoon of my life. He is part of the family and we’ve only had him a year.
“But then they called to say it had been successful so we went to collect him and he was looking a bit sorry for himself.
“But within a couple of days he was fine.
“We were so relieved to be able to bring Milo home that same evening. It was a whirlwind of a day.
“We’ve now got a stripped back tree – there’s just tinsel and a few lights on it now, so it looks like its had a bit of a hair cut.
“But we just want to make sure its safe and everything is out of Milo’s reach now.”
Vet Camilla Piazza said although Milo did not appear to have any injuries to h
is mouth or teeth there was no way to know what kind of damage had been done internally.
She said: “Mike had brought the rest of the bauble with him which gave us an idea of how much Milo had ingested.
“The pieces were very sharp so we were really worried that the shards he had swallowed could have caused severe damage to Milo’s insides.
“This could easily have been a fatal accident, but luckily Milo is a big dog and unbelievably the pieces managed to pass through his oesophagus and into his stomach without puncturing anything
“It took a couple of hours but we were able to remove the majority of the shards in his stomach in a minimally invasive way using an endoscope.”
Other pieces had reached Milo’s intestine, but the vet gave Mike and NHS worker Rachael, 46, a “special recipe” to cook at home to help Milo pass them.
Camilla added: “We do see a lot of pets who have eaten a variety of foreign bodies like batteries, skewers, underwear, stones or even fishing hooks, but a teddy bear bauble is a first for me.
“Some of these foreign bodies can be extremely dangerous but here at Blaise we offer endoscopical retrieval that allows us to remove them safely without the need for surgery.
“Everyone loves to put decorations up at this time of year, but you do have to be careful about what is in reach of your pets and could pose a hazard if swallowed.
“If something like this had happened to a smaller dog it would almost certainly have been a lot more dangerous, but the combination of Milo being bigger and having crunched the ornament down when he swallowed made him very lucky.”
