Aluminium and Dogs

Re: Aluminium and Dogs

Stephen Courtney — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:34:48 GMT

I had a dog that presented in terrible distress with a large ball of chewed up aluminium foil wedged against the inside of the anus. the chewed bits of foil were sharp and had dug in, and the ball became stuck. Straining and inflammation followed.

I had to sedate him to get it out, and if i had to do it again i would GA instead - even under domitor he was screaming....never seen anything like it.

Re: Aluminium and Dogs

Martin Atkinson — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 11:24:54 GMT

[quote user="Tony Knapp"]Dog is all better now, so treated by monitoring.[/quote] We had a dog in a couple of weeks ago that had (allegedly by a friend/relative/Uncle Tom Cobbly) been seen eating a corn cob at a BBQ. 2 days later it was vomiting, X-rays showed an area of increased density that could have been the cob and gas shadows consistent with that associated with an obstruction. We ex. lapped it and checked every inch of its gut but found nowt. It then got better spontaneously. No corn cob was seen in vomit or faeces. Clearly this was case of letting out the evil spirits but I would speculate that the vomiting was as much about the fatty bit of lamb chop or sausages it wasn't seen eating as the bloody cob!

Never underestimate the capacity of clients to throw a red herring at you (may even had eaten one of those)!

Re: Aluminium and Dogs

Tony Knapp — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 10:22:16 GMT

We trialled an x-ray using rolled up towels and foil and could not see it through those, and I have since found out we had a dog in last year with an aluminium FB that showed as a faint FB only due to the gas accumulation, so that seems to safely be a no to showing up in the gut at least.

Dog is all better now, so treated by monitoring.

Re: Aluminium and Dogs

Utlendigur — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 13:20:45 GMT

Had a case (medium crossbred) that inhaled small piece of aluminium foil - definitely shows up on a chest xray!

Re: Aluminium and Dogs

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:40:44 GMT

Trivial anecdote here, but....

I had a pet fox who would eat large quantities of aluminium foil because he liked it, and he came to no harm. He would pass neatly moulded faeces consisting almost entirely of aluminium.

Re: Aluminium and Dogs

Martin Atkinson — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 10:45:35 GMT

My first thought would be that the foil is relatively inert so is unlikely to cause any toxicity problems as it would normally pass through rather quickly.

Second thought is that if is obstructing the gut it would be because it has got scrunched up into a ball so you probably would see it. If the bits are too small to see it will probably pass through. I've seen plenty of dogs that have eaten foil when stealing food and it has passed through uneventfully.

Third thought, the food that was wrappd in the foil may be as much to source of voming - acute pancreatitis?

Re: Aluminium and Dogs

bob lehner — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 09:40:36 GMT

Have you asked VPIS about this? I had a dog a while back that swallowed a load of coins and they were most helpful on the varying toxicity of the different metals used in coinage (from memory UK coins are fairly harmless but some US coins are more toxic).

[quote user="Tony Knapp"]apparently does show, but they are not x-raying through the body of a boxer,[/quote]

You could stick a load of alu foil under the dog and take another X-ray to see how much it does show up ?