Dog Survives Nine Golf Balls and One Bullet!!!

They say cats have nine lives, but the saying may also hold true for dogs. Or at least it may hold true for Bertie, a pointer cross-breed who swallowed nine golf balls in July and luckily lived to tell -- or should we say wag -- his tail. According to the Telegraph, Bertie's owners Mark and Michelle Jewell often took their dog for strolls through their town of Malden, England. One day, they noticed Bertie's gait looked funny. Concerned, they took their dog to the Clarendon House Veterinary Center, where x-rays revealed an astonishing sight: Bertie had managed to swallow nine golf balls, all of which remained lodged in his tummy.



"We were absolutely flabbergasted when we saw Bertie's x-ray," veterinarian Emily Nightingale told the Telegraph. "His stomach could have easily ruptured from the pressure of all of the golf balls, which could have been fatal." As if the golf balls weren't enough, veterinary surgeon John Matthews got another surprise while performing the emergency two-hour surgery on Bertie. The Telegraph reports that buried in the fatty tissue surrounding the dog's stomach was a bullet -- described in one report as an "air rifle" bullet -- which Dr. Matthews also removed. "He had no wounds from the gun shot injury so we suspect he had been shot a long time ago and there is no chance he could have swallowed the bullet as it was outside the stomach," Dr. Nightingale told ZooToo.com. Unfortunately, Bertie's ordeal seems not uncommon. In June, an eight-month old Rottweiler puppy in Boston swallowed eight golf balls, but also luckily survived. As for Bertie, he has rebounded from his surgery on July 27 and scoffed at the idea of changing the spelling of his name to Birdie.

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