Guess What I found Inside Your Pet: Momma and Poppa Blue

Welcome to this edition of "Guess What I Found Inside Your Pet!" This story dates back a few years, from my last job. Most of my good stories come from there, because it was as dysfunctional of a place as you could hope to find.

Early one day at work, we got some transfer paperwork from the local emergency hospital, informing us that we'd be getting Blue, a doberman pinscher (guess what color!) who had eaten pantyhose three days prior to his visit to the emergency clinic. Blue's owners knew about his dietary indiscretion but for some reason ignored it. Why anyone would think that pantyhose are digestible is beyond me, but as I perused their transfer paperwork I gained a clearer image of these particular clients. The woman was a beauty pageant veteran. I'm not saying beauty queens are dumb, I'm saying this lady got by on her looks and not much else. How did I come to this conclusion based solely on one piece of paper? I'll tell you how. Where it said "Employer:______," Momma Blue wrote "Husband (tee hee!)." I rest my case.



Momma and Poppa Blue arrived shortly after their paperwork. My co-worker, another technician, made the mistake of asking how Blue came to be in his current condition, as in, "How did you not know that pantyhose are not a natural part of a dog's diet?" Momma Blue attempted to describe how a linear foreign body occurs, complete with statements like "it got stuck and won't move." I bet that's how they teach vets when they're in general surgery classes in school. Teacher: "Today we're going to talk about linear foreign bodies. It's when something gets stuck inside a cat or dog and won't move. Just get it unstuck so it can move."

When it was time to weigh Blue before taking him back to get ready for surgery, he was reluctant to get on the scale, as most dogs are. By this point, I had abandoned any hope that either of the Blues would say anything helpful, so when Poppa Blue told me, with an air of absolute authority, that the emergency clinic told him the dog weighed 330 kilograms, I was not even a little surprised. I politely told him that I doubted that number; he insisted. Finally, I said "It's impossible. He would weigh nearly 700 pounds." Just imagine paying to feed a 700 pound dog. Or taking it on walks! Housebreaking must be a nightmare too.

My least favorite boss came in to work on his day off just to do this surgery. This doctor has no grasp on pain control or sterile technique. These two things, when you're dealing with an intestinal foreign body, are critical. He gave the dog what amounts to doggy Advil pre-op for his pain control and then dove in. What we saw inside was a beautiful representation of a linear foreign body. When a dog eats something like pantyhose and the body can't expel it from either end, the intestines end up bunching up along the length of the object/pantyhose/undies/rope toy. The objective is to remove the foreign body as neatly as possible without leaving anything behind and without leaving any holes in things that are not meant to have holes. I'm no doctor, mind you, but I have worked and currently work for some great vets, so I know shoddy technique when I see it. For example, most surgeons understand that when you make an incision into the small intestine, it's best to avoid letting ingesta (partially digested food, debris, bugs, whatever your pet eats) spill out into the abdominal cavity. Not this guy. He got out the instrument that is used to prevent this but neglected to use it. Why is this such a bad idea? Ingesta is full of cooties that are not meant to have free roam of the territory doctors refer to as your belly; it is bad when you unleash the aforementioned cooties.

While we were in surgery, one of the receptionists poked her head into the room to let us know that Momma and Poppa Blue's other dog was vomiting, and they had just noticed that a large chunk of a foam dog bed was missing. Where could it be, inside the dog? Yes.

Blue came out of surgery and after the crappy doctor left, the better doctor gave him some more appropriate pain control. As for the other dog, that same doctor elected to pursue a plan of benevolent neglect and he managed to dispose of the foam on his own. They both went home with Momma and Poppa Blue to live out their 700 pound days. It's been several years since I worked at that place and every time I'm having a bad day at my current job, I think of that place and I remind myself of how much worse I could have it.