Despite chewing Mr David Lindsay’s toe “to the bone”, a puppy has been hailed for saving the retired builder’s life when doctors discovered that he had two blocked arteries in his leg.

Mr Lindsay, 64, from the English town of Cambridge, said he was woken up from a nap on the sofa at home by his wife’s screams.

He looked down and realised that his seven-month-old bulldog Harley had been nibbling on his right foot, so much so that his big toe had been fractured, with the toenail hanging off, and the digit covered in blood.

“My puppy had near enough chewed my big toe off! It chewed down to the bone and cracked it,” he said.

“But because of all this, I discovered that my foot is completely numb, I can’t feel anything.”

His wife immediately took him to a nearby hospital, where he was warded for nine days.

Doctors did a CT scan on the injured toe and discovered two blocked arteries. They warned Mr Lindsay, who suffers from diabetes, that he risked losing his leg if the blood supply was not returned.

Doctors were also assessing whether to have a stent procedure to open up the arteries to allow blood flow to return to his legs.

Despite the pup’s naughty behaviour, Mr Lindsay has no plans to get rid of it.

“You’ve got to laugh about it. He’s done me a favour by chewing my toe,” said the grandfather to 11 children.

“So I’m waiting to find out if they can put stents in. I’ll be keeping the dog. I’ll try to keep my toe too, but if not I told the doctor to cut it off and I can take it home for him!”

He added he was looking forward to going home to his family and his cheeky pup by the end of this week.