It was an end to a six-day ordeal for Hariprasad, a naughty pet dog that gobbled up a cotton furred foot of Donald Duck that he was playing with. In a rare feat, an expert team of vets from Animal Health Pathological Laboratory in Kolkata created history on March 27 by removing the soft toy from the dog’s stomach without any surgery.

Led by Dr S Mondal, the team adopted human medical technology to treat their four-year-old canine patient, in a first-of-its-case in Eastern India.

“Here, we adopted minimal invasive procedure of ‘endoscopy-guided foreign body removal technique’, which is frequently used in the case of children. So, as we replace one major risky surgery with modern minimal invasive procedure that takes only 15 minutes to locate and remove the foreign body, without any surgical interventions, it is indeed a milestone in our pet practice,” Dr Mondal told The Indian Express.

Usually veterinarians employ risky surgical approach called exploratory laparotomy or gastrotomy to remove “gastro-intestinal foreign body”, a very common case among puppies and dogs, Dr Mondal said.

Recalling the incident of March 22, Shubhamoy Mukherjee, the owner of the Shih Tzu, said he saw Hariprasad playing with the Donald Duck and swallowing the foot.

“Hariprasad is our child and he has thousands of toys. That night he was playing with Donald Duck. He swallowed the cotton soft toy infront of me. I began to panic and rushed him to a veterinary clinic at night because it is made of fur and would not dissolve or come out. The next day we went for USG and the 1 inch Donald Duck foot could not be located. Then our veterinary doctor advised us to get an endoscopy done,” he said.

Shubhamoy, a resident of Paddapukur in Kolkata, stated that the endoscopy showed the foot stuck to the stomach lining.

“Hariprasad is hale and hearty now. We have removed all small toys,” he said.