Sunny weekends are a great chance to get family and friends together for a BBQ. However the combination of BBQ meals and pets can result in injury – both directly and indirectly.
Lort Smith sees many preventable injuries caused when animals eat food from the BBQ, which in one case resulted in emergency surgery to remove a ‘kebab stick’ from a beloved golden retriever’s stomach via their oesophagus.
“The dog was very lucky. In some cases pets need to undergo surgery to remove a foreign body from the stomach. However because the kebab stick was visible, we could delicately remove it via endoscopy,” said Dr Andrew Kapsis, Lort Smith’s Head Veterinarian of Inpatients.
“Lort Smith often sees dogs that have eaten kebab sticks, and these can cause considerable damage to the dog’s digestive tract,” added Dr Kapsis.
Cooked bones are also a hazard as they tend to splinter or can become lodged in the throat or gut.
BBQ scraps are high in fat and can cause gastroenteritis, and more seriously pancreatitis, which is a serious and painful condition that often requires hospital treatment.
Additional foods to watch out for are:
