Benno the ammo eating dog is a Belgian Malinois from Arkansas who recently decided to eat 23 rounds of .308 ammo. Read on to see what happened to poor Benno.
The story of Benno is one you're likely not going to forget anytime soon.
Larry "Sonny" Brassfield of Mountain Home, Arkansas ran out of room in his ammo cans for some of his .308 ammo. He did not have room for about 200 rounds, so he left them in a bag by his bed and forgot about them. Unfortunately, Benno the ammo eating dog found it, and did the unthinkable.
Sonny and his wife woke up the next morning to the sound of Benno throwing up. After finding a round of .308 ammo in his vomit, they fed him breakfast and decided to watch him to see if he would be okay. He threw up another three rounds shortly thereafter, so they then decided to take him to the vet.
X-rays showed that Benno the ammo eating dog had another 17 rounds of .308 ammo in his stomach.
Veterinarian Dr. Sarah Sexton had never encountered a situation like this one before:
We said in school there's what's in the books and there's what you see in the real world. This is something they certainly did not cover in school. 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.
Luckily, the rounds that Benno the ammo-eating dog consumed were lead and zinc free (both are quite toxic to dogs). Even so, they decided to conduct surgery on Benno to remove the remaining ammunition. After two hours, Dr. Sexton successfully removed 16 highly chewed .308 rounds and one brass shell from Benno's stomach.
After the surgery, Benno was x-rayed again to make sure they got all the ammo. Though there were no rounds remaining in his digestive tract, they did discover two more rounds in his esophagus. Since the ammo was non-toxic and only a couple of rounds remained, they decided to forego an additional surgery and see if the ammo would pass on its own.
Luckily, Benno the ammo eating dog successfully "shot" the remaining rounds of ammo a few days later.
Sonny Brassfield is not very optimistic about his efforts to Benno-proof his home:
I won't be leaving ammunition laying around anymore, I can tell you that. But really, you're never going to stop him. It's just a question of what he's going to eat next.
To all the shooters and dog owners out there: be careful with your ammo. That stuff is too expensive to let your dog eat it!
Like what you see here? You can read more great hunting articles by John McAdams at The Big Game Hunting Blog. Follow him on Twitter @TheBigGameHunt.
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