28 over paw! Alsatian wolfed down golf balls, then went off her food

Vets recovered 28 golf balls from a dog's stomach which she swallowed while on daily walks with her owner.

Vets recovered 28 golf balls from a dog's stomach which she swallowed while on daily walks with her owner.

Libby, an 18-month-old German Shepherd, would drop some of the balls she picked up when Mike Wardrop took her around Didsbury Golf Club in Greater Manchester, but little did he know that she was swallowing the rest.

"It got to the stage where she would pick up four or five balls every day. She loved fitting them in her mouth," Mr Wardrop, a bar manager at the golf club, said. "She would bring them to me and I'd have a laugh. I had no idea she was wolfing them down as well."

Mr Wardrop said he noticed that something was wrong only when Libby began to go off her food. His wife Julietook her to the Greenbank Veterinary Clinic, near their home.

"I didn't believe my wife at all when she told me Libby had swallowed 28 balls. The vets didn't even have to do an x-ray because they could hear the balls and feel them rattling around," Mr Wardrop, 47, said.

"They were having bets about how many would be in there. I think the highest bet was 11."The balls weighed a total of 6lb and were recovered during a two-and-a-half-hour operation, which cost £600.

Mr Wardrop said Libby has now recovered. "We've got every single ball back and we're keeping them as a memento," he said. "They are all brown from the stomach acid but we are keeping them to show people."