open mouth insert trash

i believe i may have mentioned a time or two how amazing a dog being owney is…does that sound familiar? about 13 months ago we almost lost the o-ball when he attempted to swallow something larger than his intestines. apparently owney never developed the sense that most of the rest of us seem to have to judge the size of food that can pass through our bodies without the use of outside help. i personally have never had the experience where i’m suddenly scared that perhaps i had overestimated the size of my small intestine.

last year a large fragment of what we think was a stuffed toy jammed itself into owney’s intestines which caused his stomach to bloat and twist. after two surgeries and a very harrowing 5 days for everyone involved, he pulled through with flying colors. phew!!

all of this is to say that once again, owney has made it through emergency surgery to remove a plethora of items from his intestines. these include but are not limited to duct tape, fabric, and thread taken from the factory trash can, which is being replaced tonight with a top of the line, very expensive, very dog-proof new model. (dave also needs to apologize to phineus as he was blamed for the trash can mess).

when i asked our vet what we could possibly do to avoid this, as (although this may not seem true right now) we are not complete morons and are pretty vigilant with all our dogs and watch owney pretty closely, our wonderful vet replied “plan on surgery once a year.” awesome!! we get to pick owney up later this afternoon – if anyone has good thoughts they’re looking to pass on, please send them owney’s way!!