The Bottle Cap

On a Friday, I took the dogs out for a couple mile run and then we walk 
for about ten minutes. We were stopping to do the walk portion of the 
exercise and Nanook was sniffing along the street. He picked something 
up in his mouth. I grabbed him and tried to get whatever it was, but he 
had already swallowed it. Oh well, probably food or a Kleenex or 
something. We went for the rest of our walk and everything was fine. 
The next morning we were awoken by Nanook whining in his crate at about 
5:00 am. They don't normally whine unless they are really uncomfortable 
so Chad gets up to let him out. He goes out and goes potty and then just 
walks around in circles and lays down. He throws up a couple of times 
and then we think we are in the clear. We bring him back upstairs and he 
continues to pace around the bedroom. Then starts throwing up some more. 
I try to give him some water, but he doesn't want it. He keeps flopping 
around on the floor. He obviously very uncomfortable. I go to the grocery 
store and get some pepto bismal to help his stomach. I shove some down his 
throat and soon it comes back up along with water. I knew we were in 
trouble then. He's getting more uncomfortable by the minute. Chad has 
called the emergency vet, but it's 20 minutes away and it's almost 7:30 
so we decide to go to the closest vet. We go to the vet and he's late. 
The receptionist looks at him, but says the doctor won't be in for 
another hour so we high tail over to a new vet and they take him right 
away. We go through all that he's eaten, etc. with the doc. At this point, 
he's not giving kisses, his tongue is hanging out, and he's drooling all 
over the place. They decide to do x-rays and blood work, I say ok- just 
fix him! So we have to leave him, I give him a big hug and they tell us 
they'll call when they find something. Within a half hour of getting 
home, the doctor calls and says that he ate a beer bottle cap. They can 
see it perfectly on the x-ray. He will need emergency surgery. We give 
the go ahead and he comes through with flying colors. They call and give 
us updates as the day progresses. He's doing amazingly well they tell us. 
On Sunday, we get a couple of more calls from the vet and I ask if we can 
come see him. She agrees and we rush to the vet. They bring him out and 
he's very happy to see us and I'm so happy to see him! They've shaved his 
belly and part of his legs so he looks kinda funny, but he's fine so it 
was worth it! She shows us the x-ray and is right, you could pick out 
what he had eaten immediately. They saved it and gave it to us. We 
reluctantly said good-bye. They were amazed that he was able to go home 
the next day - Monday. We were to keep him quite, with a malamute this 
can be difficult. By Tuesday he had forgotten that he had ever been sick. 
It's been a couple of months since the incident and we are happy to report 
that other than a scar on his tummy and that his tummy hair hasn't grown 
back, he's no worse for the wear. Would he do it again - of course! Silly 
puppy!