Dog owners are advised to be aware of the danger from dogs picking up and eating unknown things while out on their daily walk. Lisa Warren described what happened to her dog Belsud Brown Ace as a very frightening and upsetting experience.

Lisa is lucky enough to be able to exercise her dogs on a private estate which is bordered by common land. On a walk last week Ace, unknown to Lisa picked up a sock on the edge of the woods and ate it. On returning home all the dogs appeared to be fine, but later Ace started to vomit and Lisa, worried by this, called the vet at lunchtime. The vet made an appointment for 5:20pm but half an hour later Ace’s condition had deteriorated and the vomiting was much worse. Worried that something was seriously wrong Lisa put Ace in her car and took him to the vet.

On the way there Ace starting fitting, Lisa told us that this was “so scary and upsetting”, she was very worried that he was suffering from some form of poisoning. As soon as they arrived at the vets Ace had to be carried into the surgery, and treatment began. The vet x-rayed the dog and saw a faint impression of something very odd, in the stomach. An emergency operation was performed to remove the foreign body from Ace which much to everyone’s surprise turned out to be a sock with vegetable matter and a wax ball inside it. On further examination of the wax ball and sock it was discovered that the sock contained hash and the wax ball contained cocaine!

When the vet informed Lisa of the contents of the sock, Lisa immediately called the police. The area of common land is popular with youths, and the police told Lisa that the amount of drugs in the sock was probably intended for personal use, and was not a dealers’. As Lisa said, “We are very lucky, Ace was very ill, but now is on the mend, but it shows that dog walkers must be alert to items left by other people, whether intentional or not”. Last year it was reported that a dog died after eating a plastic bag with the remains of a sandwich in it that had been thoughtlessly thrown away by a rambler.