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Chewy is a Bullmastiff with a sweet tooth
by Steve Tasker BVSc, MRCVS

Chewy is a Bullmastiff with a sweet tooth - which nearly cost him his life. This is a cautionary tale. Chewy's mum had baked some fairy cakes for the family and had used silicone rubber re-usable cake cases, rather than the traditional paper ones. Chewy had seen his moment and had stolen one, and ate it quick as a flash, cake case and all. He was fine initially but later started to vomit, however he did not bring up the case, and shortly after that he became suddenly a lot worse prompting a call to the vets.

He was very dull on examination with a painful tummy, and the whole story fitted together with a blocked gut. The likeliest story was that the case had passed through the stomach but got stuck in the intestines as they narrowed.

We operated on Chewy (who weighed in at 58 kg!) and opened his abdomen to discover that things were even worse than we anticipated. The case was indeed stuck but the gut wall had punctured, or perforated, which meant that the bowel contents had leaked into the abdomen causing acute peritonitis - a very serious and life threatening condition.

We removed the cake case, and had to cut out the area of bowel that had split open. We then had to flush the abdomen repeatedly and used a medical suction pump to drain all of the flushing solution completely out. This would help Chewy to overcome the peritonitis and give him a better chance of a decent recovery.

Chewy had intensive care medications in our hospitalisation facilities in his post-operative period, and we are very pleased to say he has made a full recovery.
It is well worth noting how potentially dangerous these silicone cases are if you have a dog. They are, in a sense, the 'perfect' foreign body - they are tempting and tasty (with a cake inside) are soft and easy for a dog to swallow, will pass through the stomach, but will block the small intestinal tract completely.

Chewy's sneaky steal could well have had a disastrous outcome, and we are all delighted he has survived to tell the tale! (but please don't do it again Chewy...).