A CAT owner has urged others to be aware of where they leave hair bands after his precious feline swallowed almost 50.
Paul Spraggett was stunned when vets at Willows Veterinary Centre and Referral Service in Solihull told him the cause of two-year-old Berry’s vomiting and retching was down to her habit of eating the elasticated accessories.
After leaving the beloved family pet to undergo an emergency operation at Willows, Paul said he immediately went home to warn his wife and two daughters about the dangers of leaving hair bands lying around, a message he’s now keen to share with all cat lovers.
He said: “None of us had ever thought about the risks that hairbands and similar everyday objects could pose for our four cats.
“We were really shocked to find out that was why Berry had been so sick and that’s why hairbands are now banned from anywhere the cats might go in the house.”
Graphic X-rays showed a tangled mass of the bands in two-year-old Berry’s belly.
Not surprisingly, the poorly pet was desperately trying to vomit them up but, unfortunately for Berry, they were lodged fast between her oesophagus and stomach, so surgery was the only option.
Paul, from nearby Stratford added: “We’re so grateful to have our lovely cat back and she’s certainly loving being back, too. She’s racing around with her brother and has really come on and grown since the operation.
“She’d always been much smaller and thinner than him but now there’s not much in it at all.
“Now she has much more of an appetite and that’s convinced us that she must have been snaffling these hairbands over a long period of time, maybe even 18 months.”
