What goes in must finally come out

When your dog eats something it shouldn’t it’s always a worry.

I have to be careful when I give Flossie certain toys. Not only does she shred them, she also eats them. I think this is a throwback from when she lived in the wilds of Cyprus and was forced to rely on anything she could find for food.

Her humble start in life also explains her penchant for tissues. Flossie loves them with a passion, even more than chicken. If she sees a screwed up tissue in the street, she’s pounces on it with the suction of a Dyson vacuum cleaner. It’s gone in seconds.

I don’t like to think what’s on the tissues she finds but they seem to be consumed without incident.

Her tissue chomping enthusiasm reached a new level this week. I’d washed my trainers after a muddy walk and left them underneath the radiator in the kitchen. To help them dry, I stuffed a liberal quantity of kitchen roll inside, not thinking that this would attract Flossie.

This was my mistake. Having gone upstairs for a few minutes, I came back down to find my trainers had moved. I didn’t immediately realise what had happened until I remembered that they had previously been filled with kitchen roll, which had now mysteriously vanished.

Flossie looked at me innocently. I was slightly alarmed as this meant that there were around eight sheets of paper now nestling in her tummy. Plus, it wasn’t the supermarket own sort that quickly disintegrates. This was the luxuriously thick branded variety.

Of course, often it’s appropriate to contact the vet when your dog’s eaten something it shouldn’t. However, I deduced that the contraband kitchen roll would have been relatively soggy from my wet shoes and therefore easily digested.

As all dog owners know, the only thing you can do in this situation is wait for the consumed item to make its way through naturally. 

And it did.