Woman warns about cheap pet toy after it leads to $8,100 surgery for dog

An Ontario woman feared her dog was going to die after ingesting fibers from a $9 rope toy.

"I was panicking. He’s a puppy, and if they hadn't done that second ultrasound, I could have lost him,” Wendy Sunday, of Midland, Ont., told CTV News Toronto.

Sunday said she bought the toy for her nine-month-old German Shepard Dakota last month. After a day or so of playing with it, Sunday said her dog started to act strange.

"He was still playing around and drinking water, but he couldn't keep his food down,” she said.

As days went by, Dakota got worse, and he was taken to an emergency veterinary clinic where he received ultrasounds, x-rays and eventually, emergency surgery.

“They were able to tell that he had ingested something. They got tell there was something in his stomach and they could feel it,” Sunday said.

Dakota had been ingesting fibers from the rope, which had caused a blockage in his intestine and had to be removed in surgery.

Dakota is now on the mend, but Sunday said the veterinary bills for all the tests, examinations, x-rays and surgery totalled $8,100 – all because of a $9 toy.

"I just want people to know don't buy this rope," said Sunday.

Veterinarian Rebecca Greenstein, the Chief Veterinarian at the Kleinburg Veterinary Hospital told CTV News Toronto the toys are great to play fetch with or other games, but said pets should never play with them unsupervised.

Greenstein said there is no such thing as a completely safe toy, adding rope toys can be especially dangerous.

“They can be easily shredded, and some of them are made of synthetic and very durable fabric, so the difficulty is they may stand up to some chewing, but if they are ingested they are just a terror to breakdown, and they can create this nightmare of surgical obstructions,” Greenstein said.

Sunday says she did reach out to the rope toy manufacturer but did not get a response, so she wanted to warn others about the potential hazards of rope toys.

"I now have $8,100 worth of vet bills, so that was a very costly toy," Sunday said.

Sunday did have pet insurance and is hopeful a portion of the $8,100 bill will be covered. Veterinarians said another common problem when it comes to dog toys is when a toy is too small and can pose a potential choking hazard.