A dog walker is calling on anglers to clean up their hooks after her Staffordshire Terrier nearly choked to death on a fishing line.

When Bryony Segal took Spring for a walk on Hythe beach her pet dog began choking after swallowing discarded fishing line and hooks with bate attached.

The 36-year-old, who lives in North Road, Hythe, who was walking with a friend, said: “A fishing hook was stuck in the back of her throat - the line had about five or six hooks on it.

“She was choking, we tried to get it out of her mouth, her eyes were rolling, I wanted to cry.

“I don’t know why it had been left there. My dog could have died.”

The pair rushed Spring to the Hythe Vet Centre in Portland Road when she managed to regurgitate some of the line.

With the hook still stuck in her throat vet Colin Armstrong treated her immediately and Spring is on path to a full recovery.

Bryony added: “We’re lucky she is alive. And I know I’m not talking to every fisherman but it appears some leave their line on the beach.

“I plead you take it home with you or dispose of it responsibly, imagine it was your dog or your child who got injured.

“It’s going to be peak season soon and there will be children around there.”

She called on Shepway council set up disposal bins along the beach.

Mr Armstrong, who has been a vet for 15 years, said he sees about two dogs a year where hooks have been swallowed.

A fisherman himself, he explained there is a risk lines can be discarded accidentally, if they become snagged, snapped and lost.

“We have removed a few hooks over the years, we probably see about two a year," he said.

“Unfortunately we get presented with a dog and a hook so we don’t know how it got there.

"It could be people are being lazy and not disposing the hooks.

“But lines can become snagged, and when they snap they can become lost.

“Unfortunately because they’ve got bate on them dogs love them."