The two-second secret incident caught by Ring doorbell that saved dog's life

As playful pooch Cody began making worrying gagging noises, his owner knew immediately something was very wrong, and so checked her doorbell cam footage

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A sweet pup came within a whisker of losing his life, but his owner's quick thinking means he's lived to tell the 'tail'.

When playful Cody padded in from the front garden, choking and gagging, dog mum Claire Roy knew instantly that the one-year-old pooch was in trouble.

That evening, Cody had been playing one of his favourite games - flicking ornamental stones from the flowerbeds onto the driveway - when one of the stones became lodged behind his vocal chords.

The panting and rasping sounds he was making could have easily been mistaken for a bad cough, when in fact he was gasping desperately for air, with the three-centimetre-long triangular stone blocking his larynx.

With only a tiny bit of oxygen able to pass through, poor Cody was in serious danger, but was fortunately in good hands with Claire, who immediately checked her doorbell camera footage to see what had happened.

After watching the footage back, Claire saw boisterous Cody pick up the stone and swallow it, causing the blockage. She knew then that she had to move quickly to save her beloved pet.

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Mum-of-three Claire, from Newtownards, County Down, contacted pet emergency service Vets Now for help, and took valiant steps to help Cody, who was by then looking at her with an urgent plea in his eyes.

After feeling the solid lump wedged in Cody's throat, Claire lifted the dog so his head was pointed towards the ground, before firmly striking his back, just as a parent would do with a choking toddler. She also attempted the Heimlich manoeuvre. Unfortunately, neither of these methods did the trick, and time was running out.

Claire's husband, David, rushed back from an outing to watch their three young children, while she and friend Peter drove Cody to the Vets Now 24-hour hospital in Belfast. She recalled: "It was only a 20-minute journey – but it felt like the fastest and at the same time slowest drive I’ve ever done… every minute felt like an eternity.

"Peter came with me to hold Cody while I drove – and it was heartbreaking seeing him there in his lap on the passenger seat, wheezing and making this awful hacking noise.

"I could see Cody fading with each minute, becoming quieter and sliding further down Peter's chest. It was beyond terrifying. I really thought my dog was going to die. When we got to Vets Now, we burst through the door, and I practically threw Cody at the poor receptionist, who immediately rushed him straight through to the vet team."

Sharing her side of the story, principal vet Sasha Burns Fraser, who treated Cody in his hour of need, warned that given the stone wasn't visible, it could very easily have been missed, resulting in the worst possible outcome.

According to Sasha: "Claire said she felt something solid in Cody's throat, but when we examined him, we could no longer feel this structure. Wondering whether he had swallowed it and irritated his airway, causing the cough, we opted to sedate him and have a thorough look to see where it might have ended up.

"And if it hadn't been for the doorbell footage, we might initially have thought that it was just a case of kennel cough, which was doing the rounds and can result in a really rasping cough. But because Claire had the presence of mind to check the camera, we knew he'd definitely swallowed the stone, and it was just a question of finding it.

"So, we began looking down his throat after sedation kicked in, and there it was, to my astonishment, hidden in his vocal cords – and leaving just the tiniest, tiniest airway for him to breathe. It was a life-threatening situation, and I was actually amazed that he hadn't gone blue from lack of oxygen, given how little air was getting through."

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She continued: "Every second is really critical in a case like this, so I got the team to hold Cody with his mouth pointing down. Then I got a very long pair of forceps to reach down into the larynx and very carefully prised out the stone from where it was wedged.

"This really must be one of the first ever cases of a dog's life being saved by a doorbell camera – because without that footage, we might not have known about the stone until it was too late."

Thankfully, Sasha and her team were able to retrieve the stone in time and confirmed there hadn't been any further damage. Claire and her relieved family were able to bring Cody home, and although he was a little tired from the sedation, his tail was still wagging away.

Offering an update on Cody's recovery, Claire said: "He's such a buoyant character – it didn’t take him long to bounce back. In fact, when he got home, he wanted to go back out to play with the stones again. He is the funniest, dopiest dog. We've got chickens in our back garden, and he's actually scared of them – when it should be the other way round.

"And sometimes I think that he thinks he's a cat – he jumps onto your shoulder when you're not expecting it, and suddenly there's this 17kg weight landing on you out of nowhere. Cody's a really big part of our family, and I couldn't imagine life in the house without him.

"But I honestly felt on that journey to Vets Now that Cody might be dying in slow-motion. It was awful, and we're all really grateful to Sasha and her team for getting him back to us safely and soundly. When Sasha came running out to show me the stone and tell me where she'd found it, I don't know who was more surprised: me or her! And I have to say: that doorbell camera really has been worth its weight in gold."

With Cody's story in mind, vet Sasha warned: "If your dog comes in from the garden or back from a walk and something seems to be wrong, please do what Claire did and seek veterinary help straightaway."

Do you have a story to share? Email me at julia.banim@reachplc.com