Zany as a pupThe beautiful bright eyed pup on the right is Zany.  She's a GSD/Collie Cross and is owned by Sue Heard from Hastings.

Zany's story is different to most of the stick stories on this website, but it demonstrates how the tiniest stick can be very dangerous or even fatal.

Zany was 3 years old at the time of the incident. She had been for a good walk with Sue and the other dogs, and came home with some twigs and pieces of bramble stuck in her tail. It's unavoidable if you have dogs with bushy tails. It happens to my dogs all the time, but until I heard about Zany, it hadn't crossed my mind that it could be so dangerous.

Before Sue had got around to brushing Zany's tail (it may even have happened in the car on the way home), Zany had decided to groom herself and pull out the twigs and bits of bramble with her teeth.  As she was doing this, one of the sticks went through the roof of Zany's mouth and gradually travelled upwards, looking for an escape route, which happened to be Zany's left eye.  This happened over a period of days or even weeks and Sue had no idea anything was wrong at first.
The tiny stick that caused so much trouble, shown here larger than actual sizeTo begin with, Zany was scratching at her eye and was in obvious pain. The vet examined her. He could see something behind the eye and his first thought was that she may have a brain tumour.

The vet told Sue, in front of her young children, that Zany would lose her eye, and would probably even lose her life.  Sue and the children went home and waited anxiously for news.

It was only when the vet operated to remove Zany's eye, that he found the small piece of stick and he was able to remove it.

So when the vet telephoned Sue, it was good news to say that the operation went well and that Zany would live to see another day (although only with one eye).

Close up showing where Zany's left eye used to be

  Zany as she is nowZany as she is now

There is a happy ending to Zany's story.  She recovered recovered well from the operation and learned to cope brilliantly with the loss of her left eye.

Sue took up competitive obedience training with her. Zany loves her training and despite having one eye, she has been very successful in obedience competitions, and competes at Open Obedience Shows at the highest level. Her colouring hides her missing eye quite well, and most people don't even notice it.

Zany's injury was unavoidable, it was just an unfortunate accident. Other stick injuries are avoidable. Please read on, and make a decision never to allow your dogs to play with sticks in future.