Vet removes 43 socks from Great Dane's stomach

A vet operating on a Great Dane has removed 43-and-a-half chewed socks from its stomach in emergency surgery.

The three-year-old dog had been retching and vomiting and was generally in a miserable state when its worried owners rushed it to an animal hospital in Portland, in the US state of Oregon.

X-rays showed a stomach full of "a large quantity of foreign material", The Oregonian reports.

After nearly two hours of surgery, Dr. Ashley Magee from DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital diagnosed the problem — the pet dog had a fondness for eating household socks.

"We opened up his stomach and kept removing sock after sock, of all different shapes and sizes," she said.

The Great Dane survived surgery and was discharged the following day.

The incident happened last February but has only emerged now because the hospital entered the story in an annual contest sponsored by a local vet magazine.