Rebel Reece
One year old male terrier presented for crying out in pain after eating chicken bones. Temperature was normal, no abdominal pain was noted and Rebel was kept for observation. No abnormalities were seen during observation and Rebel ate with no problem. Rebel was sent home on antibiotics with instructions to report progress. No progress report arrived until 12 days later when Rebel was presented for emergency examination. At that time it was reported that Rebel had not eaten since going home. The owner said that he thought we needed to x-ray Rebel since he thought he had a bone stuck in his throat. After considerable explanation of the possibilities x-rays were taken.
A bone can be seen stuck in the throat! What can you say? The location of the bone appears on radiographs to be just above and caudal to the larynx.
The dog was anesthetized and a rigid proctoscope run down to the area of the obstruction. The bone can be seen here crossing the esophagus.
The bone was grasped with forceps around the proctoscope and partially withdrawn. As you can see the tip of the bone is very sharp but minimal bleeding was observed after this was done.
After removal of the bone the site can be seen here. Minimal bleeding has been seen.
Rebel and the bone can be seen here with the rigid scope.
The bone can be seen here after removal. The scale is in cm. It is about 1 1/2 inches long. Rebel, who was on propafol and isoflurane was up eating within an hour. It might be a good idea if we do a little better job of following up this case now than we did before . . . but things looked good when he went home.