My Dog Ate Rat Poison

Now, thankfully as I write this my little dog is sitting on the couch next to me with his fat little brown nose resting on the screen of Jeff's blackberry.. having fallen asleep on it face first. Chasing squirrels is exhausting. But last Monday, we were a little unsure of whether he'd be in a shoe box under a few feet of dirt and snow or enjoying some pancakes with us.

I am just writing this in case someone else wants to know if their dog is as retarded as ours and finds green rat poison just as yummy as our dog did.

We hadn't hardly been at Jeff's parents house for twenty minutes when Chunky got into some rat poison in the basement. When we saw him, he was chomping away on some blocks, had a TON of the green stuff stuck in his teeth. He was pretty sad when we took it away and starting brushing his teeth. Given that rat poison is intended to kill an animal a quarter of his size with only a few bites, we figured we would call the vet ER and see what they recommended. Of course, they said to bring him in and they'd take care of it. They also gave us the option of calling the Pet Poison Control, but each case cost $65. We guessed that poison control would tell us to bring him in, so we took him to the hospital and sat there with several other people. One of which had a dog eat rat poison as well.

WHAT THE VET DID

First, they needed to know what type of poison he ate. We didn't know, since it had been put out more than a year ago and the packaging thrown away. That was a bummer-since knowing EXACTLY what your dog ate is key in treatment.

Then, we said good luck to Chunky and they took him to the back where a few minutes later I could hear him screaming. That honestly broke my heart. They gave him an injection that forced him to vomit up what the vet said were "significant" amounts of poison. Then they gave him an injection to stop vomiting. Then they fed him charcoal, which was used to absorb any poison that might be left. Then we sat there and waited forever until they discharged him.

The treatment that they did, the forced vomiting and charcoal eating could possibly have been done at home, if you knew what you were doing. We might have even tried it if we had a larger dog, or if it were my sisters (ha ha), but with Chunky only weighing ten pounds, we thought we'd let the professionals work on him. You can make a dog puke by giving them hydrogen peroxide or ipecac. Good luck getting them to eat charcoal-I wouldn't even know where to start on that. And I would only try to do that myself to buy some time before taking them in to a vet. I don't doubt that getting him to puke up that poison was key to saving his life, and that the poison would probably have killed him for sure.

When the vet came to talk to us she said that since we didn't know what kind of poison he ate, we should be extremely concerned as there are three types. One, the common kind you see 75% of the time, is a blood thinner that causes hemorrhages. One kind is a neurological kind, causing seizures, and the third is an ATP inhibitor, causing numerous issues. The first kind is the most common and easiest to treat, you make the dog vomit, give them charcoal, and send them home with a twenty eight day treatment of vitamin K to help coagulate the blood. The other two poisons are usually terminal and require stomach pumping, IVs and a hospital stay. We took our chances and guessed he ate the most common kind, and took him home on a wing and prayer that he'd pull through alright. And, I'm sure because I was praying my little heart out for my loyal friend... Chunky pulled through. He never even acted sick for a moment, although his gums are a little bruised but already improving.

So that's what happens when your dog eats rat poison. You take him to the vet... and hopefully you can take him during normal vet hours because the price we paid for the ER that late at night was crazy expensive.