We have a 2 year old Mastiff named Hogan. He is big and weighs about 135-140 pounds.
Last summer my 23 year old son was playing with Hogan out in the back yard. He (Son - BJ) was hitting a glow in the dark golf ball up into the field behind us (it was dark) - Hogan would run up and get it and bring it back. It was quite comical looking as Hogan would carry the golf ball, which was glowing, in his mouth. All you could see was this glowing ball floating up and down in the air until he got closer. Well, you can probably guess what happened - after the third trip, just as I was going to tell my son he better stop since the ball was so small in Hogan's mouth.......Hogan was running back to the house when all of a sudden the ball disappeared! We looked all around that night and the next morning but it was not to be found. So we figured Hogan must have swallowed it.
I called the vet to ask advice and see what symptoms we should be looking for in case it was causing a problem with his insides - blockage or whatever. To make a long story short, the vet x-rayed Hogan but couldn't quite tell if the ball was in there or not. Hogan didn't seem any worse for the wear after several days so the vet said to let it go and see if it "passes" out the other end. We never saw anything that looked like an intact golf ball in his droppings (that was fun looking, I can tell you!) so over time we figured that the golf ball must have broken up and passed through his system in small pieces. That was last July. Hogan has been his typical self all along - crazy and fun loving.
Well, this past week-end (six months later!) Hogan was not feeling well - he was friendly enough, but not eating well - had terrible bad breath and was passing gas that was far worse then the "typical dog gas" and had diarrea. Forgetting all about last summer, we just did what we could to make him comfortable and gave him lots of love. Sunday we could no longer take the odor of his breath and the "other" and my husband gave him a Rolaids thinking it might help to settle his insides. Well, about 4:00 in the morning we awoke hearing that wonderful sound dogs make when they are attempting to throw up - those of you with pets know what sound I'm referring to - only this was really loud. After about the second or third time, we immediately heard something hard hit the floor and dribble away. My husband immediately said - "I know that sound - that's a golf ball!"
Low and behold, Hogan had finally "yorked" up the golf ball - it was now a color of black instead of that yellowish color it was when it went down but it was totally intact - glow stick and all! Here we are two days later, Hogan is feeling MUCH better! Eating great again and not so smelly!
There could have been some bad consequences over this but we were lucky! We've learned our lesson - no playing fetch with golf balls! We stay strictly with soccer balls and frisbees which he LOVES to fetch and there is no danger of swallowing!
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