Pet Poisonings

Years ago, I had one cat that would go absolutely bonkers if anyone had Deep Heat or anything like that on their skin. The cat would leap up onto our laps while we were sitting and do its best to pin down the hand, arm, shoulder, or knee in order to lick that area directly or through the clothing. We realized that product probably wasn't good for the cat, so we put the cat in another room when we had any sore muscles or joints to treat. Anyway, the point I'm making is that some harmful chemicals may be very attractive to animals.

We acquired our new dog 2 years ago. She was 1/3 Chow, 1/3 mutt and 1/3 horny. Anyway, when she was only 8 months old I hired a pest control company to eradicate rats and mice around my property and seal up points of entrance in my house. I explained that we have a dog but he assured me that the agents and poisons he used were harmless to dogs. They started right away.

That night our dog could not breathe or move. Thank goodness my wife heard her whimper otherwise we would not have known she was in trouble until the morning, which would have been too late. We rushed her to a 24 hour emergency pet hospital and in the interview we let them know that our property had just been treated for rodents. Attempts to contact the pest control company were unsuccessful, of course, at 3 A.M. in the morning so the veterinarian had no choice but to start pumping her with vitamin K and other drugs which treat all known rodent poisonings.
The next morning the pest company responded immediately and faxed over all the information they had to the clinic. The Doctor was confused as none of the chemicals used were particularly harmful to dogs. They kept pumping her with serums.

The poor dog was unconscious for almost 3 full days and finally started coming around on day 4 and health enough to come home on day 6.

So despite the coincidence our dog was precariously close to death with only the coincidence of rodent treatment being suspect but the evidence was against it. Oh well, at least we got a healthy dog and about $5,200 later she is now 1/3 Chow and mutt and 2/3 horny.

Nice drugs.
Next time I’m getting a hungry cat.

DaveKuzminski said:

Years ago, I had one cat that would go absolutely bonkers if anyone had Deep Heat or anything like that on their skin.

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Our cat does that when I use Tiger Balm, which is the Chinese version of Deep Heat. I think there's some kind of mentholated thing in it that drives them nuts. I was once suddenly awakened in the middle of the night when she jumped on my back and started gnawing at my shoulder blade!

When my parents visited with their (small mutt) dog, I had a bucket sitting on the floor with water and Miracle Gro in it that I used to water my plants. When they first got there, before I put down a bowl of water, the dog was thirsty and drank from the Miracle Gro water. Within a few hours, her hind end was totally paralyzed. I was living in a tiny community where there was no 24 hour vet, and not having a pet myself, I didn't know where to take her in the middle of the night, so we stayed up watching her and hoping for the best. She slept peacefully. When she awoke the next morning, she had regained full use of her back legs and seemed perfectly fine with no complications.

Can't help with chemical poisonings, but I have a story someone with a dog might find interesting!

When Arjun ws a puppy, six months old, he started to go lame. At first it was justa dragging of the hind legs, but it got worse andworse very quichly. The vet had no idea what was wrong. Two days later he could hardly move his legs; when he tried to walk, he stumbled and fell over. We went to another vet, had x-rays taken, no explanation. We took him to a dog hospital. By this time he could not walk. He just lay there, almost as if paralysed. They couldn't figure out waht was wrong. They wanted to do some expensive procedure which involved removing bone marrow just in order to test it, and dig into his brain or something - mind you, it wasn't a treatment, just some kind of very complicated procedure to see if he had a neuological problem. I can't remember what the vet said at the time - it was very technical, and only one thing was clear - they had no idea what was wrong. We felt it was all ********.

We took him home and refused the diagnostic procedure. We were advised to put him to sleep, but as he didn't seem to be in pain, we didn't. It was my daughter's beloved dog; she was ten at the time.

By this time he couldn't even eat. He lay on the carpet and we fed him liquids through a syringe. He couldn't even lift his head. But you could tell he wasn't in pain by the eyes, which were freindly and puzzled, but not fearful or in anguish. He seemed to be dying.

Every morning I woke up and expected to find him dead. But I would go into the sitting room and the first thing I'd hear was "thump, thump, thump" - his tail wagging, and hitting the floor. He still couldn't lift his head, but was taking in the liquids. I prepared my daughter for his death as well as I could.

We were supposed to al be going to India, but my husband opted to stay behind to look after Arjun, who still couldn't move. Days later, there was no change - just the tail wagging.

On Christmas day, we were sitting on a hill an dmy dughtre prayed with all her heart for him. She told God, if it was possible, to heal him, but if not, let him die and look after his soul.

We called my husband that evening and he said Arjun was eating again. the next day, he was stuggling to get up. A day later, he was walking. A week later, he was back to normal.

When we returned to Germany, my husband had researched the whole thing and found the answer:
Arjun was at that phase where he chewed everything up. The week before he took ill, he had dug up all my husband's potted plants in the basement and ripped them apart.
Among the destoyed plants was cycamen; my husband found out that the roots of cyclamen are poisonous, and the symptoms are exactly those the dog showed. He actually should have died.

When I was in first grade, we had a cat named Anonymous who had four kittens. We kept one of them and named him Jack. For my 10th birthday, I got a cat from the humane society and named him Sylvester.

When I was in my second or third year of college, my parents went on a cruise. When they came back, they found Sylvester dead in the bushes next to the house. A few days later, they found Jack convulsing on the front sidewalk. They took him to the vet and the vet said that he had been poisoned by some antifreeze. I suspect that's what did in Sylvester as well.

I wasn't there.

Poltergeist Posioning (& chocolate)

On the topic of pet poisonings, I would like to clear up a misconception -- chocolate is not poisonous to dogs, per se. It depends on the quality of the chocolate, the type of chocolate (i.e. dark, milk), and the quanitity ingested.

There is no question about it -- very dark chocolate and baker's chocolate is deadly pretty much at any dosage. But the better quality of milk chocolate is not harmful, if not taken in large quantities. In fact, the French use chocolate as dog treats. Note that "white chocolate" isn't really chocolate.

My own first hand experience: For a while, my husband and I thought our new house was haunted by a poltergeist ...

One reason was because we found our box of Belgium milk chocolates (seashells) knocked off the table /on the floor in the dining room one day -- and nobody was at home except for our old, toothless dachshund. We found papers scattered about the kitchen a few days later. And then we found the box of chocolates on the dining room floor again -- half of the seashells were gone.

Yet the old dog showed no signs of illness; he ate his dinner that night with his usual appetite.

We were getting a bit spooked out, until we dashed from the dinner table one night to catch a TV show, and my husband heard sounds of cutlery coming from the dining room. We went to check it out -- and found Guess Who roaming on top of the table, licking plates and knocking about the silverware?

Apparently, you CAN teach an old dog new tricks -- he had learned how to jump onto a chair, and then onto tables (kitchen & dining room)!

When we later spoke to a vet about the chocolate, he told us that our dog was lucky we liked high-quality chocolate -- if it had been Hershey's or something similar, he would have died.