14 DAY TRIAL // Towards the end of last month, a 4-year-old pooch by the name of Benno had to be rushed into surgery to have several rounds of live ammunition recovered from his stomach.
The surgery went well and the vet who treated him expects that, now that he is no longer walking around packing heat, Benno will soon go back to being his former self.
4-year-old Benno helped himself to the live bullets
Talking to the press, owner Larry Brassfield detailed how, early morning on April 22, he and his wife happened to see 4-year-old Benno, a Belgian Malinois, puking bullets.
All in all, the couple counted 4 rounds spilling out of the dog and onto the floor. They panicked and Larry Brassfield rushed the pooch to a local veterinary clinic in the city of Mountain Home in Arkansas, US.
Here, Benno was put in an X-ray machine. Together with the vet handling the case, his owner counted a total of 17 rounds of live ammunition logged in the dog's stomach.
Apparently, hungry Benno didn't simply swallow the .308 caliber rifle ammunition. Instead, the bullets were badly deformed, meaning that that the pooch didn't forget to chew his unusual snack before gulping it down.
“I've had dogs eat things before, mostly stuffed toys. Once I had one swallow a hearing aid but I think this takes the cake,” vet Sarah Sexton said in a statement, as cited by Baxter Bulletin.
The 17 bullets stuck in Benno's stomach were removed in surgery. The animal had another 2 lodged in his esophagus, but this pair he was allowed to simply vomit out of his body.
As mentioned, Benno is now in good health and vet Sarah Bexton says he will make a full recovery.
Benno has a long history of eating all the wrong things
As it turns out, this unusual snack wasn't the first for Benno. Au contraire, his owner says that he's made it a habit to eat things that aren't, well, food.
The list of odd snacks the dog has so far tried includes socks and underwear, rubber toys, coins, rocks, aluminum foil, marbles, rope, magnets and even a television remote.
“You can baby proof a house. But I don't think it's possible to Benno-proof a house. Lord knows, we've tried and failed,” owner Larry Brassfield said in an interview.