Leela is a 4-month-old pit bull mix with a penchant for eating, and in this case just about anything goes. Thomas and Alex Driscoll, Leela's owners, explain:
"Leela's a pup right now, so she chews on about anything she can get hold of. She's eaten a few shoes, she's chewed up a football, some towels. She's chewed up all her toys, she's a good chewer."
But one day Leela suddenly stopped chewing.
So the puppy earned a quick trip to the vet. When veterinarian Dr. Kathy Blanchard first caught sight of Leela's x-rays, she thought they were a hoax. Says the veterinarian:
"I thought the techs were playing a prank on me. I thought they'd taken a piece of pipe, we'd had a plumber in the day before, and they'd laid it on the dog and taken the x-rays and just thrown them up there to see my reaction."
But Leela's condition was no prank. According to the incredible x-rays, it appeared Leela had ingested a piece of PVC pipe with an endcap on it.
A second x-ray revealed the object lay dangerously along side the dog's spine just under the dog's heart. Leela wasn't able to spit the object up so the only option was to operate.
The object removed from Leela's tummy turned out to be a hot rod stick nearly 12 inches long.
