A Somerset dog had a miracle survival after swallowing a BBQ skewer which missed all his major organs and wasn't found - for two years writes Kerhys Reilly.

Gilly the Cocker Spaniel ate the long wooden spike at a family barbecue which lead to months of discomfort.

The ten-year-old was taken to the vets multiple times racking up £3,000 in bills as medics tried to solve the problem.

The skewer had managed to avoid his organs and was wedged inside him - poking at his sides.

After two years the family noticed a wound on the side had holes where the skewer was poking through.

They rushed him to the vets and the mystery was solved - ending his pain.

South West Farmer:

The BBQ skewer after it was removed from Gilly the Cocker Spaniel. Picture: Karen Fergusson / SWNS.COM

Owner Karen Ferguson, 38, a retail duty manager from Somerset, said he must have swallowed it in August 2017.

He was very tired the following morning, putting it down to playing with the other dogs and months later became ill.

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She said: "He came out in red lumpy inflamed areas around his groin. It was horrible and he was licking it all the time.

"There wasn't anything coming out, but it did look like it was inflamed.

"Vets said, 'he's probably got a foreign body in him like a grass seed has got in him and that's causing him all this hassle'.'' Karen added: "It had moved from his groin to the right side of his body near his ribs.

"He'd gone off of his food and lost loads of weight and he was really stiff.

You could tell he was in pain. It was horrible.'' But in December 2019, over two years after swallowing the barbecue skewer, Gilly's pain would finally end.

South West Farmer:

Picture: Karen Fergusson / SWNS.COM

Karen said: "I'd gone to work as normal, at this point on his wound he had three dots in a line.

"My husband Richard walked past him and questioned, 'what's that sticking out of him?' "Something was sticking out of one of these three holes, my son held Gilly and we started to pull what looked like a bit of wood.

"It seemed to get stuck, so we took him straight down to the vets.

"It was an intact wooden barbecue skewer. It had gone through his stomach, through his ribs.

''It missed all of his organs that it shouldn't have.

Luckily the scans showed that Gilly's organs were all intact.

Gilly, now ten, is back to his usual puppy-like self, playing with his sister Bella and snoozing in the sun.

Karen said she'll be keeping an eye on the dogs as well as the children from now on. "You just don't really think. It was the whole stick!", she said.

"I just want to make people aware, and to keep an eye on the dogs not just the kids. It really could have killed him.''