A blue-eyed, 5-month-old Wooly Husky avoided major surgery after swallowing a sock.
"It was that fast - 10 seconds or less," said Paige Mutual, the puppy's owner.
Koda Bear had been playing "keep-away" with his sister, Bolt, with the sock.
"The first lap around, the sock was in his mouth," Mutual said. "The second lap around, the sock was gone."
The sock wasn't gone, but on the way to Koda Bear's stomach.
Mutual loaded Koda Bear into her car and took him to her veterinarian. The pup was then taken to Blue Pearl Veterinary Hospital for an endoscopy with Internal Medicine Specialist Dr. Melanie Otte.
"If [the sock] just sits in there you'll see repeated vomiting, and that's an emergency," said Otte.
Dr. Otte says when dogs or cats swallow something they shouldn't, it can lead to life threatening gastro-intestinal blockage.
For Koda Bear that meant getting the endoscopy.
"It's a long tube with a camera on the end, and I can just run instruments through it, grab the sock, and pull it out," Otte said.
The sock was safely removed in about 15 minutes, saving Mutual the high expense surgery and Koda Bear a lot of recovery time.
"If it moves past the stomach, we can't use the scope to get that out, and then it's a surgery," Otte said.
Mutual was able to get her pup to Otte before the sock was out of the dog's stomach.
"My dogs mean the world to me," Mutual said. "It would've been devastating."
Mutual keeps the pups out of the laundry room now.
Experts say a pet that has accidentally swallowed something should be taken to a primary care veterinarian as soon as possible. If it's after-hours, some areas have 24-hour animal hospitals.