First up? The difference between food and a spoon, as the astonishing X-ray image on the left shows.
Gypsy had to have life-saving emergency surgery after swallowing a spoon her owner, Diane Harman, had left on the kitchen worktop while she went upstairs.
'It was then I noticed the spoon was missing from the pot. I do get the odd senior moments, but I knew it was in there before.
'I looked everywhere for it, under the bed, in the dish washing bowl, outside and in Gypsy’s bed.
'Gypsy seemed fine, but I began to wonder whether she could have swallowed it.'
Ms Harman was due to take another one of her six dogs to the vet so decided to bring Gypsy along for a once-over.
After seeing the spoon in Gypsy's stomach during an X-ray, vets quickly rushed the puppy off for an emergency operation.
'The vet joked he had heard of the saying 'born with a silver spoon in their mouth' but not going the other way,' said Ms Harman.
'She needed an emergency operation, as it could have ended in serious problems. There was a risk of infection. At the time, you do have horror thoughts through your head, but I did trust the vets.'
Vet David Robinson who performed the procedure added: 'The spoon had worked its way through her stomach and into her intestines. If we had not operated straight away, there would have been a high risk of it perforating the intestine, which could have been fatal.
'We’ve taken all kinds of foreign objects out of dogs, but this is the first time we have had to remove a piece of cutlery.'
According to her owner, Gypsy is prone to bringing strange objects in from the garden.
'You never know what she is going to bring in when she comes through the dog flap. To be honest, there isn’t much more I can do to stop her getting things, apart from hanging items off hooks off the ceiling. I try to push things to the back, so she can’t get to them.'
Since having surgery Gypsy has made a full recovery and is 'full of beans' again.
(Daily Mail - Dec 30, 2013)
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