09/22/2026
⚠️ PHOTO WARNING: The last few photos contain surgical images and an up-close look at a stomach foreign body. ⚠️
🐾 Buddy had quite the eventful day at Boomer Vet! 🐾
This adorable little man came in for a mass removal surgery, but our team discovered that Buddy had a little surprise hiding inside him, too!
Before surgery, our technicians took radiographs and spotted something that definitely shouldn’t have been there — a staple in Buddy’s stomach!
Rather than opening his abdomen to retrieve it, Dr. Denton was able to use an endoscope, passing it through Buddy’s mouth and into his stomach, to grab the staple and remove it without abdominal surgery. 🎉
And here’s where things get especially interesting: the staple was trapped inside a ball of hair!
That ball of hair is called a trichobezoar. A trichobezoar is a mass of ingested hair that accumulates in the gastrointestinal tract. Dogs can swallow hair while grooming themselves or from chewing/ingesting hair from other sources. Sometimes, foreign objects can become lodged within these hair masses — just like Buddy’s staple did!
Once the staple was safely removed, Dr. Denton proceeded with Buddy’s scheduled mass removal surgery. Thankfully, everything went smoothly.
And Buddy? He was an absolute superstar.
He spent the rest of the day hanging out with our team, recovering from anesthesia and surgery, and being the cutest little patient imaginable. He was so good for everyone and is now recovering well at home!
Buddy’s case is a great reminder that sometimes our pets can swallow things we never knew they had access to. If your pet is showing vomiting, decreased appetite, abdominal discomfort, lethargy, or other unusual gastrointestinal signs, it’s worth having them evaluated — especially if there’s any possibility they may have swallowed a foreign object.
Swipe through to see Buddy’s unexpected discovery! ➡️
And yes… that really is a staple hiding inside that ball of hair.
💙 Way to go, Buddy!
