When your dog eats poison

Well…you know what I always say.

My life will never be boring. I will always have something to talk about, something crazy going on.

And oh, how this held true yesterday.

Yesterday morning, my 15lb dog, Calvin, decided he wanted to ✨spice✨ up my day. He had some help from my 2 year old, but things in no way his fault.

I was folding laundry in my bedroom and playing with Atlas, my 2 year old. My husband takes the car on Fridays because I don’t have any therapies or appointments or anywhere to go. So he takes the big kids to school and goes to work while I stay with with our youngest.

Atlas was helping me clean up and I was just giving him some small jobs to do. He loves helping and it’s easier to give him some jobs than to have him constantly knocking down my folded laundry.

So I gave him a box to throw away in the sun room. He’s usually really good at closing the doors behind him, and not allowing our small dog, Calvin, into the sun room. We recently put some mouse poison blocks in the sun room because with the colder weather, a mouse snuck in. So my dad put 3 blocks of it in random places in that room a few weeks ago.

We’ve all been extremely cognizant and aware that they were in there and not to let the dogs in.

Well, as I said. I was in my bedroom folding laundry, vacuuming, just doing my Friday chores because I have the most time on Friday to get it done. I gave Atlas a box to throw away. He went into the sun room. Calvin walked in right behind him, and Atlas came out and closed the door behind him. He didn’t see Calvin go in there. Usually he’ll yell “out, out! Mommy, out!” if he sees a dog go in there because he knows they shouldn’t be.

At 7:49am, Atlas came out of the sun room, closing Calvin in there behind him. I know, because I went back and checked the camera.

At around 8:20, I hear Calvin scratching at the door. Normally, he scratches on the door to tell someone he needs to go outside. So I go to the door expecting to be letting him out…but he’s already on the other side of the door. And he’s scratching to come back in.

Now, at this point, he’d been in there alone for about 30 minutes. I look at his face (he’s a long haired, white dog) and can tell he’s eaten something. And I’m pretty sure I knew what.

I texted my dad at 8:26am asking if he could come here. I told him Cal was in the sun room and I’m pretty sure he ate the mouse poison. He helped me look for them to see if they were still there, I had no idea where they were to begin with.

Sure enough, we couldn’t find any of them. I checked inside his mouth and I saw the green gumminess stuck to his teeth. The same green as the mouse blocks.

At 8:33am, I called our vet and explained the situation. They told us to come in immediately.

My dad and I jumped in his truck and raced over to the vet. Seriously. I’ve never seen him drive so fast. You could tell he was really feeling the urgency here.

At 8:57am, we arrived at the vet and handed him over. They took him back immediately, and we went home. It was a drop off situation.

From the moment he entered the sun room to the moment we got to the vet, an hour and 10 minutes had passed.

So we went home, dog less and anxious.

I googled. And oh…that was a scary thing to do. The kind of poison he got was bromethalin. There is no antidote for it, and if the animal even lives, it begins having permanent neurological damage within 2 hours of consumption. Basically, it’s a grave situation once symptoms begin 2 hours after ingestion.

The vet induced vomiting to hopefully get the poison out of him before it begins to be absorbed and digested.

They were successful at getting him to throw it up, and it had not begun to be digested yet. According to the vet, this was the best possible outcome.

When they called me with the update around 12pm, they said since we got him there immediately and within pretty much an hour, they were able to get him to throw most of it up. They also gave him a dose of activated charcoal which he took no problem.

They said that they’re going to give him another dose of the charcoal later in the day too, right before we pick him up at 5:30. She said since we got him there so fast it was the best possible outcome, and that they usually do see permanent neurological deficits with this particular poison. But she sounded really confident that he’s going to be fine in the long run since it didn’t really have a chance to absorb. She said to watch him super carefully but she sounded optimistic. And they don’t typically sound optimistic like over there.

I was feeling pretty good after that phone call. More calm.

We go to pick him up around 5pm and they had just given him another dose of charcoal, and a bath/drying him because the charcoal gets everywhere when they give it to them. They handed me back a clean, white, seemingly healthy dog. And reiterated that my fast acting and rushing him over there saved his life.

But when we got home, things changed.

First of all, on the way home, he threw up the entire dose of activated charcoal. UGH! Thankfully I had a towel and was prepared for that, but I was just so worried it wasn’t in him long enough to be effective.

It was also funny because they gave him 2 baths that day to try to give me back a clean white dog, and he immediately dyed himself black again when he threw up.

When we finally got home, he was shaking and acting weird and not at all himself. And he was drinking with such desperation like I’ve never seen any creature need water so badly. He was drinking and drinking and drinking. Bowlfuls of water. Couldn’t get enough.

That’s when I started worrying. Something was off. I was expecting “completely fine”. And this…was not fine.

He kept drinking. And then throwing it back up. It went on all night.

Finally, after hours of this, he settled down and stopped shaking. Stopped with the insane drinking. And hasn’t thrown up again.

As if this morning…he does seem more normal. He ate breakfast, is drinking a normal amount, and seems…okay.

Last night freaked me out. He was acting like he did get poisoned, even though the reassured me he wasn’t. But he was acting so off. It was crazy.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed and watching him like a hawk, but he does seem okay today.

And yes, all of the mouse blocks have since been permanently removed. No matter how careful we all were, accidents can still happen.

Happy Valentine’s Day! 🤦🏻‍♀️