Dogs are natural scavengers and there appears to be no limit to the range of objects

they will try to swallow and, worse still, they do not seem to learn by their mistakes!

Many of these objects pass along the digestive tract with little problem, but on occasions the nature of the object, coupled with the size of the dog, limit the passage along the bowel and require surgical intervention.

Foreign bodies encountered at Highcliff include sticks, stones, whole toys and parts of toys, ball bearings, coins, bones, kebabs complete with skewers, cocktail sticks, pins,    needles, drawing pins, string, plastic bags, whole maize cobs, and fish hooks.

Some dogs seem to have a penchant for various items of clothing including underwear, shoes, and socks.

Some of the more bizarre items that have required removal include condoms and vertical blinds.

We must not forget cats when discussing foreign bodies. Although less common, pins, needles, string, and particularly fish hooks seem to attract cats.

A case comes to mind of a cat that swallowed six, baited, fish hooks and, surprisingly, managed to pass them all without surgical intervention!!