About Animals and POISON
| 2008-03-11 14:07:40 | THC (MARIJUANA) |
| Unfortunately we see this too often with idiots (already probably stoned) thinking that their pet wants to be just as crazy as their owner is. The effect on the dog is much more harmful. The dog goes into a panicky paranoid state sometimes requiring anti-convulsive drugs. Vets that have seen it will always recognize it and although it resembles chocolate toxicity a little there are subtle differences. Dogs will eat a "stash" because it must have some smell they find attractive. Other times they eat irresponsible persons "adult cookies". I am not passing judgement on their owners usage (well yes I am)... anyway if they have locked away on their premises for private usage then that's exactly where it should remain | |
| 2008-03-11 14:04:57 | SNAIL BAIT |
| Winter time brings this on. You need to protect your pets from attractive snail food/poison. AND you need to keep it well stored at other times. Usually after a short burst of rain at night the snails have made a mess of your broccoli seedlings and you rush into Roberts for something to kill them. Again you've acted without planning. We all do sometimes and the seedlings were coming on nicely. Dogs and cats love it much more than slugs and snails do. Snails are actually alcoholics by nature and love beer.That kills them but only a few dogs like grog. Take no notice of the additives written on the snail poison pack that the makers say are are supposed to make your pet avoid it. They don't work. Your garbage-guts Labrador will eat the snails too and then the packet if that's the way he's found it. I've even seen dogs eat the whole "pet proof" container that is supposed to prevent pet access and then end up with a gut blockage with plastic as well as poisoning. Apart from beer and sawdust there are two main sorts of toxic snail killer ...Blue sort and Green sort. They both effectively kill dogs and cats as well as other species. They do it in pretty horrible nervous convulsions. There is one maker that has broken the colour rule but knowing the colour of your poison as well as its name can help me because... most green ones are METALDEHYDE and that is a real doggy nasty and needs a heavy programme of early therapy and most blue ones are ORGANOPHOSPHATE which are bad enough but we have a quick antidote. I forgot to say cattle sheep goats and horses all love snail baits too and it affects them all. Especially horses. Bring in the empty packet (or your memory of the name). Don't overstress if you can't find it quickly or remember. The treatment for each is quite different but those of us with enough experience can usually pick the slight differences in the type and nature of the convulsions to take a fair guess at which of the two types is involved. What can you do at home? ... almost nothing unless you can induce vomiting very soon after taking the poison (with very concentrated salty water). You are best to get to the vet as soon as possible rather than waste time trying to vomit the dog or cat. The vet will vomit your dog with a reliable drug if you get it there soon enough. If it is one of the blue ones (usually but not always organophosphates eg. Baysol) we will give atropine as antidote and may have to repeat it as often as needed for as long as needed. If it is metaldehyde (eg defender or one of the spin-out farm products)then sometimes stomach flushing is needed as well as anti-convulsive therapy. Anaesthesia, sometimes for several days with supportive therapy is needed in bad cases but survival seems to be the rule rather than the exception. We once saved a Labrador that had eaten 8 to 10 kg of farm strength metaldehyde, when only a few gram is enough to kill a dog...but we earned our fee that time. |
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| 2008-03-11 14:04:00 | RAT POISON |
| This is the most common poisoning of all. We get about two a week even in our small practice and more in winter. When you come in please bring in the name of the type of poison with you if you know it. These baits are made to be as attractive as possible to many species of animal. Rats and mice are fussy so if you suspect your pet has eaten it then it probably has. Given the opportunity to do so it will prefer the poison over its usual favourite food. The amount to be fatal is very small with the more modern types. There are many different brands and types of poisons but nowadays they are all anticoagulants. That is they cause internal bleeding and death from anaemia (blood loss). The onset of symptoms after taking the bait can be from a couple of hours to many days. The packaging of these poisons is still very poor. The poisons should be put out by the user in proper containers to which pets and children cannot get access. Supermarkets are culpable in selling it in packets without also selling safe dispensers with it. You should only get the poison and the dispensers from pest control companies that also give you the right instructions. Check the phone book. Yes your pet can die also from eating rodents that have been already poisoned. How does the poison work? It has a similar chemical structure to the natural body chemical called Vitamin K which is essential to prevent bleeding spontaneously. By that poison being similar to vitamin K (but useless) it blocks out the blood clotting mechanism by over-riding it by quantity and it doesn’t take much. The saving of the animal is to beat the poison by re-swamping the system with real vitamin K instead. What to do. Ring immediately and tell us what happened. Don’t leave it till next day. If it has been eaten in the last few hours we will give a drug to cause vomiting (the sooner the better) and then send you home with an antidote. (Vitamin K). Ratsack will need about ten days antidote and the newer ones (Talon etc) may need 15 to 20 days. The chemical antidote vitamin K that you take home is a bit expensive but necessary. It is absorbed into your pet’s system by adding it to fatty food or giving it orally at the same time. (Because Vitamin K is fat or food oil soluble and is transported into the bloodstream by first dissolving in the fat in the food and then being absorbed. If your pet has eaten rodent poison some time ago then all you may notice is a weakening and lethargy. If you look at the pink part of the gums you may see that it has turned white. Such cases may need a blood transfusion and a big dog or cat of your neighbour may be recruited to give a donation or we may be able to find one elsewhere. Only a small amount of blood is needed to save the life of your pet and then this is followed by the vitamin K antidote. |
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| 2008-03-11 14:06:14 | ONIONS |
| Unlike humans, onions in any form, including garlic are very toxic to dogs and cats as well as most of our other domestic animals, causing breaking of the red cells of the blood with leakage of the haemoglobin into the plasma of the blood and anaemia with kidney damage. The poisoning can happen when dogs are wormed with garlic (incorrectly 'cos it doesn't work in any species at all) or if the stew with onions is fed. Every so often a farmer will buy a truckload of reject onions from the vegetable processor to feed to stock...with consequent heavy losses through death. I have seen it too many times. One farmer lost 32 dairy cows (in full milk) in a herd of only 100. | |
| 2008-03-11 14:06:45 | MUSHROOMS AND FUNGUS |
| This is quite common. Dogs and cats will relish some types of poisonous mushies, shelf fungus, toadstools. If you are aware of the (occasionally fatal) mushroom poisoning seen in humans by recreational usage of the hallucinogenic fungi family then you may be aware of the various severely toxic effects on the brain, kidneys (diuresis) intestines and muscles. The symptoms vary according to the type of fungus. Some symptoms that I've seen are low body temperature, staggering, paralysis, dilated pupils, slobbering, diarrhoea. I usually am at a loss to be certain so I use the old principal of dilution of the poison if I'm not sure what it is and put the dog on a drip for as long as it takes to recover. The closest thing it looks like is snake bite but the blood test comes up quite different. | |
| 2008-03-11 14:03:27 | GOLD POISONING |
| In the Western District of Victoria at the seaside village of Port Fairy. I was looking out the window one sunny Saturday afternoon and three Rolls Royces with white ribbons a couple of Mercedes and a whole lot of other cars all pulled up and parked anywhere. Couldn't even see the road for cars, blokes in suits, bouquets, panic and tears. In the middle of all the fun was big Roly, the fat Labrador. The best man carried him in getting his suit all hairy ..."Bloody dorg's swallowed the bloody ring" Well weve got the drugs for these occasions to cause vomiting and it was me who picked through the vomitus on the front lawn until I found a glint of gold. Groom rubbed it on his top pocket pink hanky, jumped back into the car and they all zoomed off. Isn't it supposed to be the bride who's late? Still don't know who they were. Wonder if it got a wash before it went on the soft and delicate finger. Wonder if she even knew. |
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| 2008-03-11 14:05:45 | CHOCOLATE |
| Quite poisonous to dogs. They have to eat a fair amount but (weight for weight) very much less than humans. Half a dozen squares for a small dog is often plenty to cause poisoning but it depends on the strength of the chocolate The symptoms are excitability and anxious running about. Treatment is anti-convulsive drugs. If it's not too bad then the dog should recover without those drugs | |