Hungry hound: The puppy named Barney was taken to the vet for an X-ray, which showed the ring passing through his bodyWhen a distressed woman couldn’t find her diamond ring, she decided to scan her puppy with a metal detector and discovered the pooch had swallowed it.
Karen Woolley, from Thrumpton, Nottinghamshire, panicked when she noticed the priceless family heirloom had gone missing from behind her bedside table.
Karen, 40, and husband Steve, hunted high and low for the diamond-encrusted ring - before suspicion fell on their three-month-old puppy, Barney.
Quick-thinking Karen whipped out a metal detector - and was stunned when her hungry hound started to beep.
Bed and Breakfast owner Karen said: 'It's a bit of an odd thing to use a metal detector for - and I didn't really expect it to work.
'We were desperate to know what had happened to the ring - it's more than 100 years old and has been passed down my family for generations.
'The ring is usually on my finger all the time - I'd taken it off for a bath.
'I was devastated when I thought I'd lost it - but it slowly dawned on me that there was a good chance it was inside the dog.
Diamond fan: Barney swallowed the family heirloom which is more than 100 years old and has been passed down the family for generations'We had an old metal detector in the house that I'd wanted to use to go an have a dig about in the fields near our house.
'My husband suggested we try it on the dog - and incredibly, he started beeping straight away.
'The detector was flashing away every time we passed it over his chest area - and 20 minutes later, it was down at his belly - there was no mistaking that he'd swallowed it.'
The couple hoped that Barney, a cocker spaniel cross miniature poodle, would pass the family heirloom naturally - but vets warned that he was so tiny that the ring could kill him as it passed through his digestive system.
Within hours of gobbling the ring, Barney was on the operating table - as vets battled to save him - and his owner's ring.
Barney was sliced open - and vets managed to catch the ring just as it was exiting his stomach.
Karen added: 'Our vet said that because the ring is so large, and Barney is so small, he could be seriously injured if he tried to pass the ring himself.
'There are three big diamonds that stick out of the ring - and if they had ripped his intestine he could have bled to death.
'As the ring was so large, and the diamonds stuck out, it could have done a lot of damage if we didn't remove it.
'Puppies can be very curious and we'd advise owners not to let them play on their own and to keep small objects out of reach.'
source: dailymail
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