I'm not quite ready to go to my new home.

Vega, a 10 month old puppy, was surrendered on Sunday, March 22, 2026 because of a severe blockage. His medical journey had started on the prior Thursday when he ingested the material. By Sunday, Vega was severely dehydrated and near collapse. The hospital called SPIN to ask if we could help. SPIN said, of course! And the staff immediately began lifesaving actions including an ultrasound.

The ultrasound showed that Vega had three potential issues in the abdomen. Something in the stomach had the stomach backed up with fluids. There was something in the duodenum (first part after the stomach) and something further on into the intestines. Both the duodenum and the later part of the intestines seem "bunched up" from whatever was there, which means they could end up with a perforation. In the lower intestines, they could cut out a perforated part and stitch the ends together (take out a section of tube and then reconnect the remaining tube ends). This cannot be done at the duodenum location as that's where the pancreas is. The vet told us that we would have to wait and see how bad it was during surgery.

But before they could do the surgery, they had to put a tube thru Vega’s nose and down into his stomach to pump out the fluids. If they didn’t do that he may regurgitate the fluids in his stomach once under anaesthetic and aspirate it (breathe it into the lungs), which is very bad.

SPIN was asked to put a deposit down of $6,500, which was the low end of the estimate. We did, with no hesitation, and in Vega went for surgery. The surgery went very well. There was a sock in the stomach along with some sort of long stringy type of fabric. The duodenum was definitely all scrunched up, but they were able to release the pressure and remove the fabric, and then it stretched out and turned a good color of pink, so they are very optimistic that it will be fine. Further on in the intestines, it was more of that longish fabric strings stuff, along with some very sharp plastic.

By Sunday evening, Vega was in recovery and had managed the anesthetic very well. At 10:30 AM, the vet called SPIN’s medical team. Vega was doing very well. By Monday he was eating on his own and keeping it down and they were slowly decreasing his pain meds.  Vega was discharged on Tuesday evening into the loving arms of SPIN's more experienced fosters. They don't have any other dogs, plus they can monitor him 24/7. Wow.

Vega’s medical travails caused an already thin dog to become even skinnier. He needs multiple small meals a day until we are sure his intestines are working 100% perfectly and slowly building tone and muscle mass. Once he is healthy, we will neuter and adopt him to one very lucky family. Vega was clearly loved and he is a super dog. We are more than honoured that we could help him.

Update

Vega's recovery has been phenomenal. What an awesome dog. He is scheduled for his neuter and if all goes well, he will be up for adoption soon!