A number of years ago I saw a distraught owner with her Golden Retriever. Every family with young children needs a dog but there are some issues that arise with youngsters and their faithful companion. The Golden Retriever named Sadie was as gentle as the day was long. Unfortunately, Sadie had a bad habit of picking up items that were left on the floor. Sadie came to me early one evening after vomiting up a toy soldier. She looked great on a physical exam but after discussing the situation with her owner we decided to X-ray the abdomen. The film showed a number of other small objects. I gave her an injection to induce vomiting and several more toys were brought up. A follow up X-ray showed a very small item that would possibly pass. I suggested to the owner that we could send her home and fast her overnight. The next morning she returned for a follow up X-ray. This time there were at least seven more items in the stomach. We repeated the process of the night before and several more toys were vomited up. I still didn’t see the small item from the night before. After clarifying that we needed to be sure Sadie didn’t pick up any other toys, we sent her home.
The next morning Sadie had vomited up another couple of toys and she requested another X-ray to be sure that was it. Once again it looked like Toys R Us had set up shop in her belly. We went about our routine and sent her home with an empty stomach.
I called the owner after a week to be sure Sadie was doing OK. The owner informed me that she had brought up a few more toys but was acting fine.
Sadie eventually stopped eating toys, the kids got older or they just ran out of toys but she did great. I have seen dogs eat just about anything over the years but Sadie holds the record for the number of consecutive days on the “bad dog” list.