A spaniel narrowly avoided a serious brain injury after getting a four-inch stick lodged in her eye.
Six-year-old Jess was on an early-morning walk when the wood became stuck in the socket.
Vets initially feared that it could have pierced the back of the eye area and lodged in her brain, which could have caused a fatal infection.
However, the cocker spaniel is now back at home, seemingly none the worse for wear after her ordeal.
Owner Hannah Pedgrift, 19, of Kinfauns, said the accident happened while Jess was out last week.
She said: “She was out with my dad and was running about, dotting in and out of the bushes like a typical spaniel, when she came back with a stick stuck in her eye. It was a fluke thing to happen.
“We took her to the vets right away. I was panicked and we thought she’d need to lose her eye, so we were a bit upset and shocked.
“She’s now pretty much back to normal her eye’s out of shape so you know something has happened, but I think she’s getting her sight back.
“There is a chance of infection, but she’s on an antibiotic which should prevent that hopefully.
“We have another vets appointment coming up so fingers crossed everything is going back to normal.”
Harvey Carruthers, of Tay Valley Vets, said Jess’ injury had the potential to be much more severe.
“On the waiting room list it just said ‘stick in eye’,” he said. “I thought it was a thorn or some trivial little thing, and when I saw her she literally had a stick poking out of her eye.
“To look at her, you wouldn’t know because she was wagging her tail and looked really happy to be there she wasn’t behaving as if she was in pain at all.
“It was firmly stuck in there because, when you wiggled it, it wouldn’t move at all.
“I could only take it out under general anaesthetic but I didn’t know how long the piece of wood was.
“I gradually pulled it out and it just kept on coming. The real fear was that if the stick was sufficiently long that it could have gone through the orbit and punctured the brain.”
“She wouldn’t die immediately on taking the stick out but she could have had such a bad infection of the brain she would get meningitis and die within a few days.”