This story may be hard to swallow, but it's true

Sometimes the animals in a veterinary clinic are just plain funny. You never know what they might do next. But that's a good thing. It adds a bit of adventure and fun to our lives, and is part of the reason we veterinarians have the best job in the world.

The dog came in at midweek to spend a long holiday weekend as a boarder at the Brock Veterinary Clinic motel. The German Shepherd mix spent five days with us — eating, drinking, barking and playing just like all the other dogs. Nothing about it gave us a clue to what was going to happen on Monday afternoon.

Laura's day had been routine until about 1 p.m., when something caught her eye in the kennel where our guest was staying. The dog seemed to have taken ill and was throwing up inside its cage. Laura went to investigate.

What she found brought her running to find the rest of the staff. She was actually blushing. She said the dog had coughed up something in its cage, and we should all come to have a look.

As I headed to the kennel, I wondered what could have made her face turn red. Because the dog had been with us five days, it had to be something it had eaten since it arrived.

Whatever it was, it put the strangest look on Laura's face that I had ever seen. I was about to find out.

Can you guess what we found? Have I done a good-enough job of building up the suspense? I'll give you a hint: It was red.

We rounded the corner and could see the dog looking through the cage door. It looked happy and normal as could be. There was no sign of depression or the downcast look a dog sometimes has when it doesn't feel well. It fact, it was wagging its tail and jumping up and down. I was filled with wonder.

When we finally entered the kennel, there it was...

...a red pair of thong panties.

They just laid there after spending five days in the belly of the whale. And not a tooth mark in them. How could this be?

This dog apparently swallowed them whole. His system finally rejected them a few hours before he was scheduled to go home.

I've known a dog's stomach to reject some pretty weird things: the red plastic strip around a slice of bologna, toy soldiers, milk cartons, paper towels, watermelon seeds, candy-bar wrappers, ponytail holders, nuts and bolts — and once an entire cat! But I would never have imagined a dog could eat a red thong panty, hold it in its stomach five days and then toss it up in mint condition.

I couldn't decide whether to tell the owner when she arrived to pick up the dog.

We decided just to put the panties in a plastic bag and ask her if she wanted them back.

She, of course, did not.

Dr. Brock owns the Brock Veterinary Clinic in Lamesa, Texas.