Hacking Hobbs and the marble that almost killed him. Photo: Keaton B. Smith, DVM
Dogs eat the darndest things. Hobbs, an English Bulldog, is no exception.
On Friday night, Hobb's owners noticed that that the English Bulldog was coughing a bit. But his condition worsened rapidly: Hobbs vomited throughout the night, and by Saturday morning, his tongue was purple and he was very lethargic. They immediately took him to Dr. Keaton Smith (the same vet who removed the barbecue fork from Smokey the Chihuahua's head).
Smith ordered a radiograph of Hobbs' chest cavity. "It was a wreck!" he tells Paw Nation. "Pneumonia had set in so fast, the fluid accumulation and bronchitis were severe. There was so much irritation around his lung lobes, I couldn't even hear the heart with my stethoscope."
The vet recommended the dog be taken to the University of Tennessee teaching hospital. "I believed he had inhaled some vomit and was now dying form a very nasty pneumonia. Aspiration pneumonia is extremely serious," says Smith. But that option was costly, and Hobbs' owners simply couldn't afford it.
Instead, Smith admitted the dog to his hospital, giving Hobbs steroids to reduce the inflammation and antibiotics to help fight the infection. Hobbs responded to the meds over the course of a day but continued to cough, so Smith took some additional radiographs, which revealed a mass in the trachea just behind the pharynx.
"My first thought was that this was a piece of hard dog food, but it wasn't coming up. It was stuck. So with Hobbs' owners' permission, I put the dog under anesthesia and placed a tracheal tube to establish breathing behind the foreign body," says Smith. "I couldn't see what it was and none of my instruments could reach it, so I had to make another incision in the trachea and -- bam! -- there it was: a plastic marble."
The dog made an almost instant recovery and even gave Smith a lick on the cheek. He's home and doing "awesome," Smith tells Paw Nation. But we're betting Hobbs' owners have conveniently lost their marbles.
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Murderous marble?
Love happy endings!
It was actually a cannon ball from a toy set that Dobbs' uncle Collin sometimes played with. (note that the dog's name is Dobb's and not Hobbs, he is very particular about his name and will likely growl a lot when he reads this) Dobbs continues to do well and his hair has started to grow back in around the incision and iv sites. When he came back from the hospital he acted almost as before but really loved to have his neck scratched on either side of the incision.
This is my baby Dobber!! His name is actually Dobbs, not Hobbs, and he apparently inhaled the "murderous marble". When I got to finally bring him home, I brought the marble home with me...which my little brother identified as a piece of play coal from a Thomas the Tank Engine set! Dogs definitely do eat the darndest things!! Dr. Smith did a wonderful job...my baby is doing great!!