Dog swallows needle and thread (From Wimbledon Guardian)

Dog in Raynes Park swallows needle and thread

9:50am Monday 28th January 2013 in News By Omar Oakes

A shocked mother has vowed to give up sewing after her dog swallowed a needle which became stuck in the base of its tongue.

Ruddles, a two-year-old Labrador owned by six-year-old Alex Vickery and his parents, Eleanor and Steve Vickery from Raynes Park, swallowed the sewing needle and thread after finding it on a table at home.

They noticed that he had stopped eating and were concerned that he might have a fragment of bone caught in his throat.

They took him to the Stone Lion Veterinary Hospital in Wimbledon Village High Street where vet Jacqui Griffiths examined him and said his neck was clearly very swollen.

Ms Griffiths said: “It was almost completely embedded in the base of his tongue. It was amazing that he could still breathe given the extent of the swelling.

“Luckily the needle still had thread it in so I was able to tease it out very slowly.

“We then gave him antibiotics and anti-inflammatories to avoid the risk of infection.

“Within an hour he was tucking into his food again and he’s on his way to making a full recovery.”

She added Labradors are notorious for eating anything and everything and that pets swallowing needles was more common than most people would expect.

Mrs Vickery said she had been sewing a tag into her son’s coat and left the needle and thread on a table.

She added: “We’ve had Ruddles from a pup and he’s part of the family. He has a big appetite so it was unlike him to be off his food so we had a feeling that something was wrong.

“He’d tucked into a large lamb bone a few days earlier so we thought this might have been the culprit. We were astonished when we saw the needle on the X-ray.

“I think it must have fallen off and Ruddles then found it. It’s the last time I do any sewing – it’s far too dangerous.”