Medical mystery solved when stick removed from dog's nose

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A beagle named "Rex" is OK after having bizarre surgery on his nose. As it turns out, he had a stick lodged there for six months.

Rex's owner, Mark Kovicak, noticed his pup was acting strangely after it came back from chasing a rabbit into a wooded area. The dog's nose was bleeding, so Kovicak took him to the vet.

Station WXMI reports they flushed his nose and prescribed antibiotics to prevent infection. But after nearly six months, Rex still had a runny nose, was sneezing, and just not acting like himself. That's when Kovicak and Rex were referred for further treatment. That's when the veterinarian figured out what was going on.

Veterinarian Amanda Conkling said, "He had a very acute or sudden onset of sneezing after running into the woods so therefore a foreign body is highest on our list of possibilities."

You'd think finding a five-inch stick in the small snout of a beagle would be easy, but it was so deep it required the help of Grand Rapids' only CT scanner for pets to see it.

Conkling said, "If we look at the CT scan, this is an image of him on his side and if you follow it, it goes through his skull in millimeter slices and if we look at this little round area here, that's where that stick was sitting in his left nasal cavity."

The stick was removed and little Rex went home a happy, and finally healthy dog -- with a very relieved owner.

"If you're struggling to find a diagnosis with a pet, (don't) give up," Kovicak said.