Daisy & Zeke

You may recall that Mom, Daisy and Zeke moved into their new house a few weeks ago.  Last night, Mom and her friend were talking in the basement standing right in front of the bar, while Daisy and Zeke played with a food ball toy in the large, open space.  They were playing very nicely until the ball rolled behind the bar, and the dogs followed.  Maybe 10-15 seconds later, Mom heard a rustling, crinkling noise like that of a food wrapper.  She firmly, loudly said, “Leave it!” and ran around to the other side of the bar.  The dogs cleared out and Mom picked up the package of:   rat poison.

Though Mom stayed calm, a wave of panic is really the only way to describe how she felt.  Mom’s friend took the dogs into the other room while Mom cleaned up what she could and called the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Hotline (which does charge a fee that seems pretty high). The vet on the phone suggested that based on the particular type of poison, Mom needed to induce vomiting in both dogs since she didn’t know if or who ate the poison–or even how much.  Having done this with Daisy once before, Mom opted to go straight to the vet and save herself the emotional turmoil of inducing vomiting in both her dogs.

After a lot of productive vomiting, the vet determined that Daisy was definitely the one who got into the poison.  Zeke didn’t throw up any of the green pellets, but we decided to treat him as well in case he had only a tiny amount.  Essentially, rat poison works as an anticoagulate, and the animal that eats it bleeds to death internally over a 3-4 day period of time–it’s a horrible, inhumane death even for “pests.”  I’d encourage everyone to find other more humane and environmentally safe solutions to “vermin,” rather than poison that risks everyone’s health.  For Daisy’s sake, thank goodness she got caught eating the poison so Mom took her to the vet within less than 20-30 minutes to start treatment.

Both dogs are doing just fine and will be on a Vitamin K supplement to counteract any traces of poison left in their systems.  They will go back to the vet tomorrow evening for bloodwork to monitor Prothrombin, which tells us if their blood is clotting–thus being able to prevent any internal bleeding.  They may have to have one or two more blood tests if this one is abnormal.  As you can imagine, this is inconvenient, stressful, time-consuming, and very expensive.  Plus, it’s downright scary!

So, my advice to all guardians of pets (especially dogs) or parents of young children:

1. Crate train your dog properly and early, so you can keep them safe when you’re not with them.  Always keep your dogs with you when you are home.  Obviously, DON’T crate your child, but keep him/her with you;)
2. BEFORE bringing your pet or child into the new home (whether you’re renting OR buying), make sure you get on the ground and check under everything–appliances, cabinets, etc., for any poisons or other hazardous chemicals.  Also, consider asking your landlord or seller if they used hazardous chemicals for cleaning or poison products in the past.
3. Don’t assume there’s nothing harmful if you can’t see it even on ground level.  Get a flashlight and a broom and dig around under large items.  I found even more rat poison when we got home and I went searching for it!  Also don’t assume there’s nothing there if the landlord or seller says there isn’t!
4. Keep the phone numbers for the ASPCA Poison Control Line (1-800-548-2423) and the Poison Control Center Line (1-800-222-1222), plus your regular vet and 24-hour emergency vet handy.  Luckily, I had a magnet of the emergency vet’s office on the fridge, and they gave me the Poison Line very quickly.

Hopefully, we’ll never have to deal with this horrible experience again!  Please consider alternative means rather than poison, and scope out your new place to prevent your pets and children from finding harmful products.  I NEVER would have thought to check for rat poison, so hopefully this post will prevent the same thing from happening to someone else’s pet or child.  We’ll post an update once we get the results of the bloodwork and progress in our treatments.