Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan .... don't keep any rodent bait in your house! Our pooch, Buddy the Wonder Dogg, got into a package of the stuff last Tuesday. He ate 3 packets (about the size of a deck of cards) and was working on a fourth when my wife caught him. She raced him to the pet hospital, and he just got home today. He had his stomach pumped, X-rays, blood work, vitamin K shots (vitamin K is the antidote) and spent a week in the hospital recovering. I knew the stuff needed to be kept away from children and pets. What I didn't know is that dogs are wildly attracted to this stuff and will go to great lengths to get at it. The poison prevents their blood from clotting. We were lucky we found him in the act of ingesting it -- most times, the pet consumes it and has no visible abnormalities for a couple of days. By then, it is too late. He got home today, but he is definitely not himself. He still has to get vitamin K tablets for the next 10 days plus an antibiotic. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't make the same stupid mistake I did -- if you have a dog, don't use rodent bait of any kind. Your dog can find it. It is a painful (not to mention VERY expensive) lesson I learned. And in talking with the vet and several friends, this happens frequently -- several people have been through this terrible experience.
Originally Posted By trekkeruss I saw an episode of E-Vets on Animal Planet recently where a puppy ingested rat poison. They couldn't save him.
Originally Posted By jnemo Watch out that he has not acquired a taste for it and will go to any means to get to it. We had a black lab that loved rat poison. She would climb that cabinets to get to it. We had many fast trips to the vets for her. I think she had nine lives as she also had heart worms when we got her, treated her for that, then she acquired the rat food habit. Later in her life she went fishing only the bones did not pass. Hope Buddy is feeling better soon.
Originally Posted By gottaluvdavillains Our dog "Sweetie" did this right before her first birthday - she is now 3 and just fine. It was scary, but sounds like you got to the vet in time. It took Sweetie about 3 weeks to be her old self again...
Originally Posted By amazedncal2 I'm glad that he was caught in the act! I hope he is feeling back to normal very soon poor guy. What a scare for your family though. I'm sure he is very sorry he was naughty Thanks for the reminder! Our dog is also attracted to those little ant hotels, we ended up duct taping them high on the wall after twice finding her starting to much on them.
Originally Posted By Autopia Deb Thanks for the warning. I'll check the house and garden cupboard to see if we have any around and will toss anything I find.
Originally Posted By TiggerPooh1973 Aww, poor Buddy! Glad to hear you caught him in time and that he is on the mend! Give him a few extra Snausages to make him feel better and tell him Lilo & Stitch send kisses!
Originally Posted By Big Thunder Kar2nman Sorry to hear that Buddy the Wonder dog had to go through all that, but I am glad to hear that he pulled through. I was an aspiring vet once, and worked in veterinary medicine as a teen, I know all too well that rat poison by design is an attractant, that's why it's called rat "bait" D-Con is deadly, consider yourself [and Buddy] very lucky, the key thing is that he got treatment stat, minutes are critical and 3 packages is a LOT! [warning, may be graphic] It once happened to me with my Thunder [we too called him "Thunder the wonder dog"] I knew that mouse poison was bad to have around, so I didn't even like using it, especially in the back yard, we had mice in our water heater closet outside on our patio area once, so I put a packet in there, it worked, I went to clean inside and there were a few dried out mouse carcasses, I swept them out of the water heater closet onto the patio to sweep into the dust pan, Thunder saw something flip out and land so he figured it's either a toy or food and quickly put it in his mouth and ran away with it. I never knew for sure if he swallowed it. He lived probably because I immediately took him to the emergency pet hospital since it was a weekend after hours. The vet said that D-Con brand rat bait in particular, is very bad and mouse bait is almost as bad, only there is less quantity. He said that even though the vermin that ingest it have since died and appear long since dead, smaller and almost no weight, they still have a deadly amount of poison in them. he said that what happens sometimes if an owl will see a dying rodent that has eaten D-Con, they will swoop it up, eat it, then the bird dies, sometimes falling from the sky into a lake that will then kill any ducks or other mammals nearby. The point was that even secondary and third contact is still deadly. BTW rat poison works by causing internal bleeding, the vitamin K coagulates the blood and keeps vital fluids in the body. I learned that people who have rodent problems near avocado trees have a tough battle, because rats eat the fallen avocados, which naturally have vitamin K in them, and it's harder for poisons to work, so people will leave more bait/poison, which increases the danger for dogs. Rodenticides, bad stuff
Originally Posted By Big Thunder by the way... Snail and Slug bait is also dangerous to use around pets. Anti-Freeze will poison dogs and cats too
Originally Posted By ABBY I'm sure glad Buddy is ok. Sending best wishes for him to get back to his normal self soon.
Originally Posted By Liberty Belle Poor Buddy! I'm glad the story had a happy ending, but that's scary stuff. My dog got into the rat poison when he was about 7 or 8. I was pretty young at the time (pre-teen) and was just beside myself with worry. We rushed him to the vet and he was fine and lived to the ripe old age of 15.
Originally Posted By Kala A great heads up, thank you! A big hug and ear scratch to Buddy. I'm glad he is feeling better and on the mend.
Originally Posted By 4Disnee So gald to hear that Buddy is doing well. Thanks for the heads up I really appreciate it.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Thanks for the well wishes, everyone! Greatly appreciated!! Buddy's doing "okay." He yipped a couple of times when we touched his sides, so he must be sore there. The poison affected his pancreas, and will take some time to heal. Big Thunder -- the vet told me that the stuff I had here was even worse than D-Con -- it's the next generation rodent bait, and unfortunately for my dog dissolves even faster. I used "Tomcat" brand. I will say it worked wonders for catching our invader -- within 8 hours. So it definitely does what it's suppossed to do. But it also lures dogs just as well.
