Exploring Gastrointestinal Foreign Bodies in Cats and Dogs

You may have heard of some unbelievable stories of pets ingesting the most bizarre things - from socks and pantyhose to rocks and even batteries. But how does this happen and what can be done to help our furry friends when they face such dangerous situations? In this episode, we explore the symptoms, diagnosis, treatment options, and potential outcomes of gastrointestinal foreign bodies.

Foreign body obstructions occur when pets ingest non-food items that cannot pass through their digestive system. These objects can become lodged under the tongue, or inside the esophagus, stomach, or intestinal tract. As you can imagine, this can cause significant discomfort and even life-threatening complications for pets. We'll take a closer look at how these obstructions happen and the tell-tale signs that your pet may have ingested something they shouldn't have. We'll also explore the different treatment options available to help your pet recover and prevent future incidents.

What You’ll Learn:

• What a GI foreign body is.

• The clinical signs of a foreign body obstruction.

• Signs to watch out for at home.

• How a foreign body obstruction is diagnosed.

• Where the most common foreign bodies are located.

• How to remove the foreign body.

• When your veterinarian may choose to do surgery.

• What to do if you can’t afford surgery.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• “Even if the item that your pet has consumed is small, there are times when we will still need to do surgery because that item could puncture their organs or poison them.” - Tyler Sugerman

• “It’s important to keep the cone on your pet and keep an eye on them after surgery to ensure they’re not licking the wound. Even if it seems like they’re not licking it when you’re around, they could easily be doing it when you’re asleep or out of the room.” - Tyler Sugerman

• “If your pet is vomiting continuously, that’s not a good sign. You need to get your pet to an emergency room as quickly as possible. Do not wait until the morning.” - Tyler Sugerman

Resources Mentioned:

• ASPCA 888-426-4435 or pet poison helpline 855-764-7661

Read The Transcript:

Welcome to Vetsplanation. I'm your veterinary host, Tyler, or you can call me Suggs. This podcast is about educating pet parents about what is going on with their furry little loved ones. As an emergency veterinarian, I understand how hard it is to explain complex diseases in terms that are understandable for pet parents in a few short minutes before the next critical case comes in.

In this podcast, we can dive deeper into understanding of what our pets are going through and break down those complex medical terms into easier to understand chunks of information.

Just a quick disclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. This is not meant to be a diagnosis of your pet. If you have questions about diagnostics or treatment options, please talk to your veterinarian about those things.

Remember, we are all practicing veterinary medicine, and medicine is not an exact science. Your veterinarian may have different treatment options. The information I provide here is to help pet parents, and it's not related to my place of work. I'm here for you guys to provide free information and knowledge.

If you like our podcast, consider sharing this podcast with at least one friend or someone else who has pets and could benefit from this.

Now, let's jump into this week's episode.

Tyler Sugerman: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Vetsplanation. So, today, we're going to be talking about gastrointestinal foreign bodies or GI foreign bodies. They have lots of names.

But we're just talking about basically things that dogs and cats have eaten, not things that have gotten stuck because they got stuck between their toes or something like that. Like this is specifically something that the dog or cat ate that has gotten stuck.

So, we're talking about gastrointestinal foreign bodies or GI foreign bodies. We're going to talk about like the symptoms of it, how we diagnose it, treatment options, and what the outcomes of those are.

So, first to start out with, like there are lots of names for GI foreign bodies, people call them. So, GI foreign bodies, which just means gastrointestinal. Gastro meaning stomach and intestinal meaning the stomach.

You can have gastric foreign bodies just in the stomach. You can have intestinal foreign bodies just in the small intestines. You can have large intestine foreign bodies just in large intestines.

We also, seal here, called like blockages, small intestinal blockages, gastric blockages, stomach blockages, all of those things.

And this also, isn't going to include like the other things that happen with the gastrointestinal tract. Like sometimes you can have things like masses and interceptions. And I'm going to go into all of those at a different time.

So, right now, we're just going to be talking about those foreign bodies.

So, what is a GI foreign body? So, usually, it means that a pet has consumed whatever it is that's causing the problem. And that's can be lots of things, things.

This can be toys, it can be bones, so it can be things that can potentially break down but don't. It could be string, corn cobs, hair ties, trash, gorilla glue. Like we've seen tons of different types.

So, there are ones that are like a solitary thing like a corn cob that gets stuck. And then there can be things that are really long pieces of things.

So, we have something called a linear foreign body, meaning like string is the most common thing in a cat, that gets stuck like at the stomach and then comes all the way down the small intestines. And I'll show you like kind of a diagram real quick here in a second.

But those can be linear foreign bodies. So, something that gets stuck somewhere up really high and then leads down all the small intestines.

So, I just want to go over some anatomy really quickly. So, for anybody watching on YouTube, you can kind of follow along. But basically, when the dog eats something … again, I'm a terrible draw, I’m sorry about this, but I did not go to art school.

So, when a dog eats something, it's going to go from the mouth into the esophagus. That's going to be this part up here, into the stomach. And you can see we have the esophagus goes right directly into the stomach here.

And then from the stomach, we have this really small portion that goes from the stomach, this big stomach into this really small, small intestines.

So, the small intestines, they're called small intestines but they're really large, there's a very long amount of them. So, the small intestines come in and then they're just kind of like all bunched up in the abdomen.

They're really hard to see like every specific portion of the small intestines. People think like on a lot of pictures or anatomy pictures, it's just like one giant like loop going back and forth, really easy to see each one. And that's really not the case. It's really all bunched up together.

And then from the small intestines it goes out to these thing called the large intestines. So, large intestines are a lot thicker. So, the small intestines is kind of thinner like you can see here. And the large intestines is quite a bit thicker.

So, by the time it gets to the large intestines, we come out here and then that's where they defecate it out if they're going to. But the large contestants, as soon as it gets in here, the chances are it’s going to actually pass, which is nice because they're much larger.

Alright. So, that's kind of our quick anatomy thing really quick here. So, let's talk about like what some of the clinical signs are.

So, a lot of times, if that foreign body gets stuck up really high, like up in the stomach area, then they're going to be like just vomiting pretty profusely. These are the guys that are usually like sicker because it goes in their esophagus into their stomach and just nothing can pass here.

So, the stomach fills up really full or becomes kind of like bloated with just a bunch of liquid that's sitting in there from what the dog's own stomach is like producing. And then they just constantly are vomiting.

If it's down below, then sometimes it's more just like not wanting to eat, vomiting occasionally, both of them will likely have diarrhea, and then abdominal pain. So, if I push on their belly, they're usually like pretty painful depending on where it is and how bad it is. They can become really dehydrated.

But the things that you're going to see at home are usually going to start to be vomiting and not wanting to eat.

So, even diarrhea people don't even notice sometimes because the dog goes outside and just goes to the bathroom and some people see them straining and think that they're just constipated.

But 90% of the time that's not constipation. That's usually actually them having diarrhea. They're just straining because they have that feeling that they have to go. So, they're out there trying to go and only little drops are coming out.

So, vomiting, not wanting to eat. A lot of people say that they're really lethargic, they just don't really want to do anything. But again, it just depends on like where it is and what it is.

I've also, had puppies just running around jumping like crazy and you would never know that they had this intestinal blockage.

How do we diagnose it? This one is a little bit hard because it depends on what it is. I'm going to show you an X-ray of my dog later on. But basically, physical exam is usually the first one that we're doing.

So, typically, we're looking at them — if it's a cat, a lot of times they'll eat string and the string can get stuck underneath their tongue. So, you'll see us open their mouth and look under the tongue for a string, because it gets anchored under there.

And sometimes they'll even, like we don't see it one day but then they vomit and it gets stuck under the tongue then and then the next day we actually see that string. So, always looking under the tongue to see if there's any sort of string that might be attached underneath there.

Sometimes we've even found other weird things like I've found a needle that was in a cat's mouth. I've found pieces of grass in the cat's mouth and then stuck in the back as well. So, you just never know. So, we're typically doing like a physical exam to look under the tongue.

And also, pushing on their bellies. So, we're usually like palpating, is what that's called. So, we're palpating their abdomen so we can see if we can physically feel the foreign body, which sometimes we can. It depends on again, how big it is and how big the dog or a cat is.

If it's a kind of bit of a rotund patient, then we may not be able to feel that versus kind of our skinnier patients, we can actually feel that pretty easy. So, we're going to feel for that.

And then the next thing we're going to do is do X-rays. X-rays are actually called radiographs. So, if you hear somebody saying radiographs that is the technical name for it, X-ray is like just the beam that's coming down. But anyways, we'll ask for X-rays or radiographs.

We usually take three views, so don't be surprised if they say we wanted to do three views, not just one view, or two views, or three views. Because the fact that with only one view, we can see possibly that there's a foreign body in there but we cannot locate where it is.

So, a lot of times we're doing a second one to locate it. Or if we're not sure if it's in the colon versus small intestines or if it's in a certain part of the stomach then we're going to take three views.

So, it's very typical to take three views because that's the way that we are able to see the whole animal. We see them on their left side, we see them on their back, and then we see them on their right side.

So, taking those X-rays, sometimes we can see things really easily. Things like metal, rocks, those are really easy to see. They show up really well. I'm going to show you again, later on, an X-ray of my dog. But you can see them very, very well.

Other things we can't see as well. Sometimes there are cloth or you know the stuffing from the bed that they pull out and eat? Those are really hard to see on an X-ray. It looks a lot like their regular intestines on an X-ray and that makes it very difficult to see.

So, sometimes we're also, looking just for our gas patterns. So, we're looking to see is there a large amount of gas in one area and then just kind of stops.

Or we're seeing if an area of the small intestine becomes really dilated and then another area is really small. Because that would tell me that there's a lot of fluid backing up behind that object and then all the rest of it is clear.

We're also, sometimes going to be asking to do other types of X-rays. So, you can do something called a contrast X-ray. It's basically where we put in a dye, we like have the animal drink the dye. So, having the dog or cat drink it.

They almost always hate it and I feel always really bad about it, but that's a good way for us to be able to see where that dye is going.

So, the two types of dye are usually called Barium or Iohexol or Renografin is the other name for that. But it's basically we have them drink this and then we take a series of X-rays. So, it's usually like it's a pretty long series.

But they take a series of X-rays to see like where all of that stuff is going. So, we like can see them swallowing it, we can see them going into the stomach, it kind of like coats the stomach and then it goes down all throughout the small intestines.

And it highlights it so we can see if something is like going around something else or if it's getting stuck in one place.

Because the other problem with foreign bodies is sometimes you can have a partial foreign body. So, on an X-ray, I might be able to see this really big dilation of small intestines and then nothing, I see a nice foreign body.

But if you have a partial obstruction, that means that like if you have your tube of your intestines, it's not covering the whole tube and not allowing anything to pass. It's only covering like part of it. So, some stuff can still pass through there.

And again, that makes it like really difficult because if we can't see the foreign body and we can't see these gas patterns, then sometimes we just don't know that it's there.

Other things that we can use for try to diagnosis this is ultrasound. So, not everybody's going to have an ultrasound but sometimes using an ultrasound can help. And we usually we're looking for a couple of things.

We're looking to see if there's fluid in the abdomen or in the belly. Because if there's fluid, that's not a good thing. That usually means that the intestines or the stomach has opened up, called a perforation.

We're also, looking to see if we have really dilated small intestines. Like you see just all this fluid going in there and just kind of stopping or the fluid just kind of sits there going back and forth because it has nowhere else to go.

And sometimes you can see that actual object as well. Usually, using ultrasound can help with that too.

And then lastly, you can use a CT, so CAT scan, that’s the other name for that. But a CT scan is basically where you're like taking multiple images of the patient in order to be able to see like all the different parts. And sometimes you can see on a CT as well.

That's definitely the more expensive route. So, a lot of times you're doing an exam first, then X-rays, and an ultrasound. And then if you can't find it then, then CT is probably going to be your next best option.

Alright. So, some of the things that you could also do with X-rays — we're going to talk about again, like what are we looking at for X-rays? That's the most common thing that we're going to use.

Like I said, we're going to look for things that are really easy to see, metal, rocks, some foreign bodies we can see well. But again, a lot of the cloth ones, really difficult to see. Looking for those gas patterns, looking to see if anything's really dilated.

And then if we're not sure if this is in like let's say the small intestines or the stomach versus in the large intestines … again, the large intestines, if it's in there it's going to move. We don't have to worry about doing surgery, it's going to move. Like 99% of the time it will move.

So, sometimes we'll do something called a pneumocolonogram, meaning we just … pneumo means air, and then colon, so colo, and then gram is just like tacking a sample of.

So, we put air like up the butt actually. So, we're putting air up into the large intestines so that we can actually make this as kind of like a contrast, so we can see the difference between air that's in the colon and an object that's in the colon.

Because if we see a rock and we're like, “I'm not really sure if this rock is in the small intestines or if this rock is in the colon,” because they really overlap. Then we can do that pneumocolonogram so that we can see if that rock is in the colon.

Because if so, we don't need to do surgery, it's going to be fine. Again, most likely it's going to pass. If it got through all the small intestines that are really thin and got to the large intestines, then it's most likely going to pass.

Alright. We're also, looking to see like how big this item is. So, is this like a really small little metal thing? It's probably going to pass. We don't really usually have to do anything about that.

Or are these really large things that even if we put them on fluids and stuff, it's not going to pass. So, we're looking to see like how big those items are.

And then also, on X-ray you can see fluid when there's quite a bit of it. So, we're also, again, looking to make sure that there's not fluid because we worry about a perforation or the intestines opening up from whatever the object is.

And then sometimes we also, have to submit this to a radiologist. A radiologist is usually a board-certified veterinarian. So, somebody who has gone to extra schooling to be able to learn how to read X-rays and ultrasound better with better tools than sometimes we can.

So, they're looking for lots of different things. This is like when you get your X-rays in the human health facility, they don't actually read them at that facility, they send them to a radiologist or the radiologist on staff so that they can read those x-rays.

And so, like I said, that's their specialty, that is all that they do. It's they read X-rays all day, every day.

So, those are the people that sometimes we have to send them to because we're just not sure and we don't want to go into surgery or make the dog or cat worse by doing something that we didn't need to do in the first place.

So, a lot of times we'll talk about sending it out to a radiologist so they can confirm if there is a foreign body or if it's something that may pass or if they see something else in there that we just don't.

So, I know a lot of people always are like, “Well, you take the X-rays, you should be able to read them.” We can read them but sometimes there's just really intricate details that we may not be able to see that the radiologist will see.

Alright. What about ultrasound? What are we looking for on ultrasound? Like I said, we're looking for can we see an object? So, can we see the actual foreign body itself?

Can we see free fluid or fluid in the abdomen telling us that that means that there's probably a perforation somewhere, which means we need to get into surgery right away.

Are we actually seeing placation? So, you can have those linear foreign bodies that I was talking about with cats. The string that goes from the tongue all the way through the stomach into the small intestines.

You can see the small intestines. What they want to do is they want to move things by like making this almost like massaging motion. They're just kind of like moving things along.

And when they move and it moves along a string, all of that stuff just kind of like placates. So, it almost looks like an accordion and it all becomes like coiled in on itself. It's just like a ball of small intestines rather than it's freely floating small intestines that are usually in there.

So, we can usually see that on our ultrasound. So, we're looking for that placation on ultrasound. It is something you can see on X-ray but it's a little bit harder. So, usually ultrasound is the best way to see that.

Now, what about our most common things that we see? So, the most common things that we're going to see in our patients is usually going to be like foreign bodies in the small intestines.

There's multiple parts of the small intestines but the middle portion of the small intestines is usually the most common place that we see them. You can also, see them in the stomach as well pretty frequently.

And then in the colon again, like where they're going to poop it out anyways, it's less likely because they've already like passed all the symptoms. So, usually it's not as likely we're going to see it in there.

So, usually, small intestines and in the stomach are the most likely to cause all of those symptoms.

Now, what are we going to do about it? So, we found the foreign body, let's say on X-ray, now, what are we going to do?

So, the next step is try to decide what the best treatment option is going to be and sometimes we'll talk about many treatment options. I usually will talk about two or three treatment options depending on what the foreign body is, how long it's been there, and what's going to be the best thing for that pet.

So, first thing is deciding like where is it and what is the size. If we're like, “Hey, this is really tiny, that's probably going to pass,” then we usually just talk about doing outpatient treatment.

But I will say there are going to be some tiny objects that we're going to say, “It doesn't matter if this will pass, we need to go on surgery right now.”

So, some of those can be things that are going to cause zinc or lead toxicity. So, pennies can do this and pennies are real tiny, you would think that that'd be able to pass just fine. But as it's in that stomach it's breaking down all those chemicals and it's causing them to become really sick.

And I'll do that toxicity later on. But that can be a really big deal. So, we want to make sure that we get those out right away if that's the case.

Sometimes for certain things like if they're small and in the stomach, we can actually make them vomit. So, things like socks and we know that they've ingested it very recently.

For me, I usually will make them vomit within three hours of them eating it because otherwise you have like the stomach becomes a small intestines. So, after about a couple hours, all the stuff that's in the stomach is going to move into the small intestines.

After it passes the stomach we cannot make them vomit it out. There is a little sphincter that's right here and nothing in that small intestines is going to come out. Only the things that are in the stomach.

And even then, we usually can only make them vomit about 75% of what's in the stomach. So, it's not always something they're going to get out. And if they have an empty stomach, a lot of times we'll feed them first and then make them vomit so that they have something else to come up as well.

But it also, depends on like what kind of objects those are. If it's something like a skewer, we don't want to make them vomit because if their stomach contracts then that skewer is just going to get pushed through the stomach not actually up into the esophagus like we would like them to.

If it's going to be something that's really sharp like bones, again, we're not going to make them vomit because it's going to be really sharp as it's coming up that esophagus. The stomach is really big, the esophagus is much smaller.

And so, if it's going to come up the esophagus, we don't want it to like create lacerations or cuts in the esophagus, that would be pretty bad. So, only certain things that we're going to make them vomit for.

Let's talk about just the pros and cons of making them vomit as well. So, like I said, it cannot be done for anything sharp, anything that we risk perforation for. And then it can also, cause trauma to the small intestines if it's too late.

So, if the stomach is here, the stomach is the first thing and then we go into our small intestines.

If let's say you have a sock. So, that sock, if part of it is in the stomach and part of it is in the small intestines and we tried to make them vomit, we can actually rip this little sphincter that's between the stomach and the small intestines.

And we don't want to do that either. Even though we got the sock up, now, we still have to go into surgery and that can be a really difficult surgery to do. So, it depends on like how long ago it's been that they've eaten it, whether we can do that again.

Usually, those are the biggest risks. I mean, the kind of the pros are like if you're able to get it out with making them vomit or inducing emesis (is what it's called), then that's great. We've saved money, we've saved time for the recovery, we've saved the pet from having to go under sedation or also, under surgery.

So, if we can do it that way, we always try to first. But sometimes it's not going to happen that way.

So, depending on again where it is, what it is, it might be just talking about doing fluids. So, we give them either fluids under the skin called sub-Q fluids or subcutaneous fluids or we'll give them fluid through the IV.

So, if they're in the IV, usually they're staying in the hospital, so we're putting it directly into their vein so that way we can give them more fluids. We can only give them so much fluids under the skin or sub-Q.

So, ideally, that's not the best way but fluids IV is usually better. That way, we can rehydrate their intestines because sometimes their intestines are just like kind of stuck, clinched, because it's really painful and they're just really dehydrated.

So, sometimes when we give them fluids, it kind of opens up those small intestines and allows that to be able to move through.

So, giving them fluids, sometimes we'll give them pain medication and then rechecking those X-rays. Rechecking the X-rays is usually between about 8 hours to 12 hours after those initial X-rays are taken because we want to see did that pass or didn't move at all.

If it is not moved at all, then we know we have to go to surgery. Versus if it's moved even just a little bit, then we're going to talk about like are we going to wait and see how this turns out or are we going to just go to surgery?

Because a lot of times, after it's gone through the small intestines, it should be in the colon between that 8 to 12-hour window if it's going to pass.

So, some of the cons about like doing just fluids and rechecking X-rays is one, it may not pass. So, you've had them hospitalized for that extra 8 to 12 hours and it still didn't pass.

It could be that in that period of time (that 8 to 12 hours is a long time), it could perforate through then. So, it can actually cause a hole in the small intestines and now we have fluid leaking out of the small intestines.

A lot of times when we're watching them, they've gotten a lot sicker in those cases. So, a lot of times we kind of know that there's probably a bigger problem, but that is a possibility.

And also, you still may not see it because it's still be a partial obstruction when that's not fully making it to where things cannot pass, that things can potentially still pass in there. So, we may not see it that way.

Some of the pros are that you kind of save money because if you don't have to go to surgery. Usually, it's less expensive to have them on fluids and rechecking X-rays than it is to go to surgery. And it's less invasive, so it's not going to be going into a surgery for the pet if they don't need it.

So, we always have to like kind of weigh these things like what's going to be the better option for them.

And then endoscopy is another one that I get a lot of questions about. So, endoscopy is where you stick a camera down their mouth into their esophagus. So, the camera's going down to the esophagus, into the stomach.

So, again, this is another one that we cannot pass the stomach because there's that little specter that's there. So, we can only go into the stomach here.

Very rarely like usually internists and stuff can go into the very first part of the small intestines but that's it. Like a very tiny, tiny amount. They can't go through all the small intestines.

So, if it's in the stomach and it's something that you can get out very easily, then that's a great option. But some of the things to know are like we only have like little tiny little pinchers to be able to get things out.

Sometimes they'll use other tools, baskets and things to try to get things out, but if it's a really large object like a really big rock, we are not going to get that out with endoscopy. It's just not going to happen.

Versus if this is something really small or something that can easily get out, like let's say a baby sock, a baby sock we can grab easily and be able to pull out.

There's always going to be limitations to this as well though if the stomach is really full of fluid, then sometimes that's really difficult to see those things and we're just not going to be able to get it out with an endoscopy because we just can't see it if they're small and there's just tons of fluid in there.

Or it may be that even though it was in the stomach, by the time we've gotten into that procedure, maybe it's already moved into the small intestines. So, again, we may not be able to see those things.

But some of the pros of doing endoscopy are that it's less invasive so we don't have to cut into the patient. So, it's not going to be as long of a healing time. It's not going to be as long in the hospital as well.

It could potentially cost less. It really just depends on the facility. And then they have like less healing time as well.

Versus the cons of doing endoscopy are going to be that we may not be able to get it out. So, we may do endoscopy and still not be able to get it out and they still have to go to surgery.

So, it's going to be more time under anesthesia because if we had just gotten a surgery first, then it's going to be less time potentially than it was if we had just done surgery versus doing endoscopy and then surgery.

Other things is, it may get stuck depending on the object. So, sometimes you could like try to pull it out from the stomach but remember our esophagus (our little food pipe) is definitely smaller than our stomach.

So, it could potentially get stuck in that esophagus and then we have to push it back in and then now, we've kind of like upset all the esophagus that's there. We kind of like make little scarring on it. So, again, not ideal.

And then you have the risks of anesthesia. No matter what thing you do under anesthesia, there's always going to be risk no matter how healthy the patient was before anesthesia, and no matter how healthy the patient is while we're doing the procedure.

You also, cannot see the entire intestines. Like I said, you can only go into the stomach. I cannot see all the rest of the stuff in the intestines.

So, yes, there may have been a rock in the stomach, but maybe there was a baby sock in the small intestines and I'm not going to see that.

So, if that's the case, maybe the rock wasn't the problem at all. Maybe it was that sock and we've taken out the rock and that was it, but they're still sick. So, we can't see anything in the small intestines.

You could also, have things like masses in the small intestines and other weird deformities in the small intestines. And again, we can't see that when we're doing endoscopy.

Sorry, one of the nice things I forgot to mention before was that when they wake up usually they're able to go home pretty quickly. Again, they don't have to be hospitalized for that.

And the last treatment we usually do is going to be surgery. So, surgery is essentially where we make an incision just like right over where the umbilicus is. So, on their belly, just like in the middle of their belly is usually where we make the incision.

So, a lot of people think of like spays for their pets and you see this like tiny incision for them. But this is actually going to be a much larger incision but in the same area. But that way we're able to see all of the stomach and the small intestines.

Usually, small incisions are not as good for those things. So, we want to take out all the stomach and the small intestines so we can be able to look at everything. Surgery usually means depending on like what procedure we have to do, depends on what we're doing.

So, there's typically a couple different types. If the object is in the stomach, we're doing something called a gastronomy. That just means we're going into the stomach, we make a incision into the stomach and we remove the object and then we suture that stomach back up.

This is usually like the best case because they heal really well on the stomach. The stomach is really forgiving, it can stretch like a really big amount. So, the objects in the stomach usually do really well.

But it might be in the small intestines. So, if it's in the small intestines and we just have to make like one little incision in the small intestines and remove it, (let's say for like again, a rock) then it's called an enterotomy. Just means going into the intestines, make a incision, pull it out, suture it back up.

Let's say we get in there and we see that that part where it is, like let's say that rock or that sock or something in the small intestines is really black and it's dead or it has a hole in it called perforation, that's not good.

That usually means that that intestines will like die off and will open up. And instead of allowing it to do that, we just want to take it out.

So, it's called an R&A or a resection and anastomosis, because you're resecting it, you're taking a piece out. And anastomosis is going to be bringing those two pieces back together. So, the two healthy pieces are touching and that bad piece is now gone.

That always has risks as well. So, some of these pros and cons of this. The risks of the R&A or resection in anastomosis, is that when we put those two pieces back together, the body may not realize that it's the same thing, from the same body, and it may actually dehisce or come apart.

And if that's the case, that's not a good prognosis either because all that fluid from inside the stomach and the small intestines is now, going to leak into the abdomen. It makes them really sick.

This usually happens about three to five days after surgery but it can still happen like immediately afterwards and up to seven days afterwards. But it's basically where they don't make a scar that's like going to keep all of this stuff together.

And it's not usually because of the way that the surgery was done or the way that the suture pattern was or anything, it's just the dog or cat's own body not allowing it to heal correctly.

So, some of the other cons of surgery are going to be like, again, it's more invasive. If we can take it out a different way that would be great. It can be costly because now, we're doing a full surgery, it's not just like a minor little procedure.

And then they usually do need to stay in the hospital afterwards because we want to make sure they're on adequate pain control and ideally that they're eating before they go home.

Cats I'm always like well, if they're just okay on pain control … a lot of times cats won't eat in the hospital, which I'm okay with and I'll usually send them home.

But for dogs, like I usually like them eating so it might mean having the owner come to be able to see if they can eat versus just giving them appetite stimulants as well before they go home.

And some dogs are just really nervous and they're just not going to eat in the hospital. So, a lot of times I just send them home with their parents.

And then the other con can be you can have a negative exploratory. Meaning that we may say that yes, we need to go in there, the radiologist says, “Yes, we need to go in there, it looks like there's an object that's in there.” And we get in there and there's no object.

It could just be that they had something called ileus, meaning that their intestines just like kind of stopped moving in one spot.

So, it looked like all of those other patterns that we talked about, the small intestines were really dilated with fluid, there was gas that was stopped at one area. So, it might look like we needs to go in there and we really don't.

That's not something we have as much now. It was something that we had quite a lot before because we just didn't have all the technology to be able to look for those things then.

Now, it's not as common that we see that. Mostly, we see those with our ones that are partial foreign bodies that were like it really seems like it's a foreign body, like they're vomiting continuously.

We say that we think we should go in and do an abdominal exploratory. Meaning we go in, we don't know if there's an object that's in there but we're going in there to see.

And if we don't see anything it's not actually a partial obstruction then we have a negative exploratory, meaning we did not find anything.

And even in those cases, it's still good information, we still know that there's not an object in there. A lot of times they'll get biopsies if that's the case. So, taking samples of the tissue to see like why did we have this in the first place?

Because sometimes you'll have weird things like parasites that are in there or you can have weird diseases, cancers, and stuff that are in there that caused that. So, it still gives us good information but it was definitely a more invasive way to get that information.

Alright. So, let's talk about some of our complications of each of these. So, some of the complications of like inducing emesis or making them vomit, that can be things like aspiration pneumonia.

If we make them vomit and then they inhale some of that, then they can inhale it into their lungs and all that bacteria that they just inhaled can create a pneumonia. It's again, not a very common one but still something that can potentially happen.

It could also, be that we tried to induce emesis, we tried to make them vomit and then it gets stuck in the esophagus and we have to go in and quickly and push it back down into the stomach or grab it with endoscopy if that's a possibility.

With fluids and rechecking X-rays, our big things we worry about are going to be that those intestines can't perforate in that period of time, so it can open up.

And then with endoscopy, sometimes you can get scarring-like strictures. It's like literally like just you have your nice little esophagus and it just kind of like makes the scar, makes it smaller if there's something that's like stuck in that area.

That's not necessarily due to the endoscopy itself. Those cameras are pretty small. But it's actually due to like pulling it out and then it just kind of like scraping along the esophagus.

And then for surgery, our big things are infection. A lot of times we're giving antibiotics beforehand, so that we know that we're not going to have some sort of infection. And it's usually like just a couple of doses before and afterwards to make sure that we reduce the risk of infections.

You can have dehiscence. So, again, that's like where if we did an R&A where you take out that bad section, put two pieces back together. That that can open up, that's called a dehiscence.

That can even happen in an enterotomy where we just make one little incision in the intestines and then close it back up. It can open back up especially if there's like cancerous things that are there as well.

You might have to go back into surgery. So, sometimes that area where you did surgery can create adhesions. This isn't something as big in veterinary medicine as it is in human medicine but it is still a really good possibility.

I've had it on multiple dogs so far, that I've gone had to go back in on other people's surgeries because there was an adhesion that was there. It is literally nothing that the surgeon has done. It was actually just that that's the way that the body healed.

And adhesions are like the scarring. So, instead of you having like these really nice twists and turns in your stomach and your small intestines, in the small intestines, it will create kind of like a hairpin turn and nothing can really pass in that area because it's too tight.

It's become too small and no food can pass through there, no objects can pass through there.

And a lot of these dogs and cats that eat objects, they're likely going to eat another object. And so, if there's adhesions that are in there, they're probably not going to pass.

And then infection, that's another big one, like I said. Be even not just the infection from the incision into the intestines or into the stomach itself, but actually infection on the outside of the body, on the skin.

And like 90% of the time, that infection is because the pet parent did not keep their restraint collar or the e-collar or cone of shame (whatever you want to call it) on. And that pet was able to lick at it.

Dogs are really smart and cats are really smart and people don't really give them as much credit for that. People are always like, “Well, I'm with them all day and literally they don't lick at it.”

But you have to sleep sometimes and you have to go to the bathroom sometimes and that's exactly the time that they're going to start licking at it because they know that if they look at it in front of you you're going to get angry at them. But if they lick it when you're not around, then they can get away with it.

When we do their surgery, we usually shave their belly and as that hair grows back in, it's itchy. And so, they're going to look at it. Even if that incision isn't bothering them, the itchiness of the hair growing back in is going to bother them. So, they will look at it.

So, keep those e-collars on so that we don't have any of those infections on the outside.

Now, let's talk about our outcomes for this. In most cases, they do really well. Like in I'd say a good 85 to 90% of my cases that I have to do surgery on, or endoscopy on, or just make them vomit, they do great. No problems, they go home, no issues. But it depends on how complicated this is.

If it had perforations, so if that intestines opens up and all that fluid is spilling out into the belly, there's going to be more complications to that. We have to put in drains to try to get all that fluid out and to make sure that there's no bacteria that's still in there.

You could have more risks of adhesions or that scarring in between each one of the small intestines. You could have other problems that it creates inside the belly. So, like pancreatitis, which I've covered before.

But the pancreas sits right next to the stomach, right next to the small intestines, the beginning part. And if you have a pancreatitis that makes them really ill as well, they don't want to eat.

So, you can definitely have like lots of other complications from that. And those other complicating factors are going to make that not as good of a prognosis. It's going to be more concerning that they may not leave the hospital if that's the case.

Or if they're super, super sick even going into surgery, we do everything we can to try to help stabilize them beforehand. Like I most cases, I'm not going into surgery immediately for these guys.

A lot of times I'm putting them on fluids first so that I know that they're hydrated enough to go into surgery. And if they're still like declining even though I'm trying to help stabilize them, then sometimes we just have to make the decision to go in no matter what.

A lot of those that have perforations, we try to go in pretty quickly and again, like I'm trying to help stabilize them in surgery while we're also, having to deal with the surgery. So, those can be really complicating factors and not always the best prognosis.

I will also, say the other bad prognosis can be from those patients that do eat objects over and over and over again. The more times we have to do that surgery, the worse it is for the intestines, the more likely they're going to get adhesions, the more likely they're going to need resections.

Now, we can only take out so much intestines. Like it gets to a point to where we've taken out so much intestines that it causes something called short bowel syndrome, meaning that they cannot absorb enough of their nutrients and they're just constantly having diarrhea all the time.

They get really skinny, it's not good for the pet. And so, we ideally don't want to have to take out more than what's needed.

Let's talk lastly about like some of the most common questions that I get. One of the most common question I get is, “Can I just give my dog or cat mineral oil like I do a horse?”

So, it's usually not a very good idea. It doesn't really help them pass it more. Like people think that just lubricates it so that way things can pass. That doesn't really happen for our dogs and cats. I'm not even sure if that really happens for horses. That's not my realm.

But giving them that mineral oil is actually going to make things worse. Especially if they vomit and inhale it, that mineral oil just gets stuck in their lungs and that can be detrimental.

Especially like they do not like the taste of that and a lot of times they will vomit it right back up. We need to get them medication to help stop their vomiting, not making them vomit more.

And I mean, so far I've not heard anybody that's been successful with doing the mineral oil. I know it was something that they used to do a long time ago, but we stopped that for a reason because it just didn't work very well.

The next common question I get is, “Well, like how long can I wait to have the surgery done? So, if I diagnose it at night, (because that's when I'm there) can I wait till the morning for the surgery to be done?”

So, there are a couple of things. Yes, you could potentially wait for the surgery depending on where it is, what the circumstances are. Let's say it's in the stomach and it's something that's not like fully blocking them. Can you wait till the morning to see your regular vet?

Sure. We'll just give them medication to make them stop vomiting, giving them fluids under the skin and then you go to your regular vet in the morning, if they'll do it.

That's also, the other big thing is sometimes they will not do it because they're already booked up on their day and they're like, “Well, you're just going to have to go to an emergency hospital to do that.” So, then you're right back where you started in the first place.

There's also, the thoughts of like if this is something that is lower down. If it's lower down and they're not vomiting quite as frequently, they're not really like as sick. Then sure again, we can give medications to support them and then you can go to your regular vet in the morning.

But let's say this is something higher up in the small intestines and they're really sick, they're just vomiting continuously, that's not a good side. We need to do something sooner than just like waiting till the morning.

Because the chances of them perforating or opening up those intestines are much higher than and we need to be able to get in there before that happens.

Because you may think that you're going to save money by going to your regular vet, but in the end, it actually ends up costing more because maybe it was just a really simple procedure that night, but in the morning it becomes a much more complicated procedure because that intestines has opened up and now, we have many more problems that we have to deal with.

It might be just a one-day hospitalization at the ER, but it might be a multiple day hospitalization if we have to do it at the regular vet.

And most regular vets can handle all of these things. So, it's not that I'm worried that they're not going to be able to do them. It's mostly like just the timing of things. How sick is that pet?

And then the last thing I think I get the most is, “Well, what do we do if we can't get funds for surgery?”

Surgery's not cheap. Surgery is an expensive thing and most of the time you're going to have to pay for these surgeries before we do it. Because like most veterinarians do not have payment plans through that vet. It's usually through third party companies.

So, we usually like talking about like doing third party companies, like going through them. So, the two biggest ones are CareCredit.

So, CareCredit usually uses like I think they go off your credit and then they give you a credit card that you can use for humans and animals for health things. So, you can apply for that online.

You can do Scratchpay. So, Scratchpay, not everybody takes, you just have to like just try to make sure that you've gone to like a hospital that does take it. But Scratchpay is similar to a CareCredit, but it's actually a loan.

So, it's a one-time loan that you apply for specifically for animal health, so that you can get a loan that you pay back. So, you’re still making payments, but you’re paying back to that third party, not specifically to the veterinarian.

There’s also, credit cards. Like a lot of people have had, I’ve just taken out a new credit card. Like literally applied online at night and then just like got a new credit card and then used that credit card number immediately. That’s another option.

Starting GoFundMe things. The hardest part of that is you do have to have the finances beforehand. So, GoFundMe, you can’t get enough just in that time period of like an hour or two hours before we do surgery.

But a lot of people do like put up a GoFundMe and then they've had like other people help with their loans. Like they'll have like their friends or their family members help them with like giving them money to try to help with the procedure.

And then they've used that GoFundMe account to be able to pay the rest of it or to pay their family members or whomever back.

There's fundraising that you can do or looking for funding essentially. There are lots of places that do give funding. The Humane Society is usually one of them. So, I always tell people to like check the Humane Society.

And remember, all trying to do this during the day. Like if you know you're going to be in the vet because you're concerned that they might have eaten a foreign body, try to do all this during the day because at night they're closed. At 6:00 PM, we can't get ahold of anybody at that point.

But during the day, if you call or go online to the Humane Society, they'll usually like have something to fill out or they can talk to you about it.

The Humane Society wants to keep their pets with their families, so they want to try to help by giving some amount of money.

It's usually not going to be like the whole amount for like the surgery. It's usually going to be a couple hundred dollars but it's still something to try to help with them.

There's also, lots of other rescues and stuff that will help with it as well. Because again, everybody wants to keep them with your family. They really don't want this to be that they have to get relinquished or anything.

But let's say we can't get the funding for it, you've applied for CareCredit but you know you can't pay that back. Like at that situation, like we don't want it to be that you as the pet parent can't afford rent, or food, or your car, or anything. So, there are other options.

There are also, things like relinquishing them to the Humane Society so that they can hopefully, get the services that they need.

Or even if they're really bad, like a lot of times I'll talk about to people about when they're really sick and it's going to be really, really expensive and we're not sure that they're going to come out of this, like unfortunately, considering humane euthanasia.

Because we don't want them to suffer and I don't want to send them home because I know that they're not going to pass it. So, that's an option as well.

Alright. That was a lot on our surgery stuff and just GI four bodies in general. If you have questions for me again, like always you could email me. I'm always happy to answer those.

And then I'm going to do a screen share really quickly. So, anybody who is on our YouTube or wherever, can look at this. So, I just want to show you really quickly what my dog looked like.

So, this is my little lab puppy when she was little, this was like six years ago that she ate rocks. So, I was talking about like what X-rays look like on here. So, our X-rays, they usually have … again, we have do three views. I'm just going to do the one where she's on her back because I think that's just the easiest one to see things.

So, here are rocks right here. These really bright things here. So, here is things like her diaphragm is up here, her chest would be way up there. Her stomach kind of sits in this area right here.

So, stomach is like in this generalized area and then all of her small intestines are all throughout here. And then her colon is actually coming up this way and around here to here.

So, when we take those X-rays, we're trying to figure out like where is all this stuff. All the small intestines are kind of sitting all over the colon here. So, it's really difficult to see whether it's in the colon or not.

Her stomach is again sitting right in here. And then the stomach then becomes the small intestines. So, stomach becomes the small intestines and we just have to see if all this stuff can pass through.

So, for her, it was, we did not want to make her vomit necessarily because she had like this really sharp angle on her rock there. So, ideally, I didn't want to make her vomit.

And she had quite a few rocks, so I wasn't really sure if she could vomit all of this up. We just gave her fluids and try to see if it would pass and they did, it did pass, which is great. But we just never know if they're going to pass or not.

So, real quick, like that's what I was saying about our foreign bodies, sometimes they're really easy to see and sometimes they just all look like the small intestines and we can't see anything.

You saw like how jumbled up all of that stuff looks. It's almost impossible to see them sometimes.

And I want to do my fun animal fact really quickly. So, animal fact, we're going to talk about pistol shrimps, it's also, called a snapping shrimp. These are really cool shrimp. It just amazes me, all these animals.

But they basically have a really cool superpower. So, bear with me for a second.

So, these shrimp are really tiny. They're usually about two centimeters long and they have two different size claws. So, you'll actually see a lot of shrimp that have like a small claw and a big claw. But this one has a really big claw.

And when it senses that there's some sort of prey nearby, it'll kind of like open the claw just a little bit so that water can get into there, like into this little crook of the claw and then it quickly snaps it down.

And when it does that, there's this pressure from a little plunger that's inside that big claw that when they snap it, it forces water out of that claw. But it also, creates these really intense bubbles.

So, these bubbles can actually go out of that claw at speeds of 60 miles per hour. Like it's as fast as going out of like a claw from … to the freeway. Essentially, freeway speed.

That can kill or just even like stun any of its prey. So, I can quickly go over and eat it then.

But these bubbles also, when they pop, they make really loud snapping sounds, which is why these are like pistol shrimp because they sound like if they're pulling out a pistol and shooting. And they usually will do a couple of them. So, it literally sounds like a pistol going off.

Sorry, the other thing I meant to mention is that like even when like if you put your ears under the water or you go down into the water, they're so loud that you can hear those pistol shrimp going from like … even if you're not next to them.

Like you'd think this little tiny thing that you should have to be next to the shrimp to be able to hear it. But you could be above the water or above them in the water quite a bit and still be able to hear it.

There are lots of different varieties of these. So, I'm going to talk about the one that I think is the coolest. It's the Synalpheus pinkfloydi, it is named after Pink Floyd. Their bubbles can reach 210 decibels.

So, it is so loud that it is louder than a gunshot. So, a gunshot is about 140 to 175 decibels. Like these are really loud, also, super crazy.

So, they can use that for when there are other predators nearby or if they want the prey and they don't want the other shrimp that're around to get the prey. They can use that to be able to like make those other predators and other competitors go away. It just scares them.

They also, use their large claw or other things. So, the other thing is that the larger the claw, the more likely they are to get a mate. So, the female pistol shrimp prefer them to have a very large claw because they're more likely to be able to protect them. So, super interesting.

It's like lots of other interesting facts about them, but I thought that was a really cool one.

Alright guys, as always, if you have any questions you can email me suggs@vetsplanationpodcast.com. So, that's S-U-G-G-S@vetsplanationpodcast.com.

You can find me on social media, you can message me, and I'm always happy to answer your questions. And again, I'm always happy to do a topic if you have a question about a specific topic.

Alright, thank you, guys.

Thanks for listening this week. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or you just want to say hi, feel free to email me at suggs@vetsplanationpodcast.com.

You can visit our website at vetsplanationpodcast.com, or you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok at Vetsplanation.

Thank you all again for listening and we'll see you back here next week.