A pet dog thought to be dying of cancer after a mass was found in her stomach had actually eaten more than 300 hair bobbles.
Alison Parker rushed her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Lottie to the vet after she started vomiting and vets found a mass in her stomach.
Fearing it was cancer they performed an emergency operation and were astonished to discover approximately 300 hair ties.
Cheeky Lottie had been secretly stealing bobbles belonging to 48-year-old Alison and her two teenage daughters.
The surgeon filled plastic bags with the black elastics it is thought Lottie had been gobbling down since she joined the family in March 2015.
Lottie is now safely back home and the family from Accrington, Lancs, are more vigilant when it comes to hiding away their hair ties.
School teacher Alison, who forked out 2,800 for Lottie's treatment, said: "I couldn't believe it when the vet rang me to say what they'd found.
"I've got two teenage girls and all three of us have long hair so wear hair bobbles all the time - luckily, my husband is bald or it could have been even more!
"If you dropped a hair bobble, Lottie would chase after it but if we ever saw her do that, we'd quickly grab it and get it out of her mouth.
"Of course I knew there was a chance she'd have swallowed one without us looking, but to see the bags full of hair bobbles that the vet had removed was just astonishing!"
Alison was shopping after work on December 20, 2019, when she got a phone call from one of her daughters at home to say Lottie was unwell.
She rushed home to find her precious pooch vomiting violently and after monitoring her through the night, Alison rushed Lottie to the local vet.
Lottie was lethargic and her oxygen levels had dropped while her heart rate increased to an alarming rate.
Examining her stomach, the vet found a large lump and Lottie needed to go to the animal hospital to find out what it was.
Alison said: "We were all terrified - we thought Lottie had cancer.
"We took her to the hospital but they had to try and help her recover before doing the scan as she was so unwell that she could have died if they'd sedated her at that point.
"An X-ray confirmed it was a foreign mass, and by this point I'd spent 800, so the vet asked if we wanted to go for the surgery which would cost more or put Lottie down.
"The surgery would cost another 2,000 and we didn't even know if she'd survive but Lottie isn't just a pet, she's our family, so out came the credit card immediately."
Lottie underwent surgery at 11.30pm on December 21 while Alison and her family waited nervously at home for updates.
It was in the early hours of the next day that they got a call to say the vet had found hundreds of hair bobbles inside her stomach.
Lottie was so intensively damaged that her stomach needed to be repaired in three different places and they had caused damage to her intestines.
Alison collected Lottie on December 23 and couldn't believe the number of hair bobbles that the vet had found inside her poor puppy.
Alison said: "The vet had saved the bag to show me - there were hundreds of hair bobbles, both thick ones and thin ones and some with little metal clasps.
"We'd been told about six months before that Lottie needed to lose weight as she had a heart murmur, but dieting and more walks didn't seem to help her lose any weight.
"It was obviously because all these bobbles were taking up loads of space and filling out her stomach, and with them removed, she looked as skinny as a greyhound!
"She's now home, doing really well and eating me out of house and home - it's so scary to think she could have died.
"I'm just so pleased she's ok, we all are and everybody is being more vigilant with making sure no hair bobbles end up on the floor and hurting our lovely girl again!"
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Mass feared to be cancer in dog's stomach turned out to be 300 hair bobbles - Mirror Online
