UNITED KINGDOM – A cat somehow ended up with a long length of thread hanging out of both ends.
Spud, who is 2, was playing with the 144cm-long thread when he accidentally swallowed it.
One end of it came out of his bum, but the other had wrapped itself around his tongue – meaning he couldn’t pass it properly.
Poor Spud (Picture: Mercury Press)
Now Spud’s owner Phoebe Mills, who is 24, is sternly warning other cat owners to be careful about what they play with, adding that the kitty is ‘lucky’ to be alive.
She explained that she was in ‘absolute bits’ when Spud’s vets told her that he’d need to have a major operation.
‘I really started to panic,’ she stated. ‘I didn’t think the thread was that serious, and I was worried about him having to have such a big procedure. He had three incisions into his small intestine, and needed to stay at the vets’ overnight for extra care.’
Phoebe noticed the thread coming out of his bum (Picture: Mercury Press)
She went on to add: ‘You don’t really think small things like this could cause so much damage.’
Spud had stayed at Phoebe’s mom’s house over Christmas while she and her partner were away, and when they returned, he wasn’t feeling himself.
Vets, who initially didn’t notice the thread, prescribed him antibiotics and antiemetics.
‘He seemed to be on the mend until he went to the toilet one day and we noticed a piece of string hanging out of his bum,’ Phoebe stated.
‘He’s always eating flowers and other bits, and they’ve never done him any harm, so I thought the same with the piece of thread really. I thought it would just find its own way out.’
The thread had also wound itself around his tongue (Picture: Mercury Press)
However, after a few days it was still there, so Spud was taken back to the vets – which is when they discovered that the string was still attached to his tongue, and had become wrapped all around his intestines.
Deputy head nurse Cheryl Ramsbottom,
who is 28, stated: ‘Spud was really lucky. If the string had been pulled or tugged, his intestines would have suffered a lot of damage with a huge risk of bowel or stomach perforation.’
Fortunately, Spud was discharged just a few days following the operation and has since returned to his normal self.
