Sunday, October 20, 2013

Worst. Dog owner. Ever.

As long as he's been here, Murphy has been an inveterate counter-surfer, trash-bag-raider, and occasional destroyer of random objects when I leave him alone for too long.
Frankly I've gotten used to finding ripped up papers or cardboard boxes on the floor by his dog bed and just picking it up.

Well this afternoon, I found the remains of a small bag shredded and empty on the floor by his bed. I didn't recognize it but out of curiosity I pieced enough of it back together to figure out what it was: Havoc rat and mouse poison.

Dammit. I used this stuff a year ago to get rid of some mice. They ate part of one bag and then they were gone. I was sure that I'd thrown the remainder of that stuff away just to prevent something like this from happening. Apparently I did not, because here we are with the remains of one of the bags.

I've already been in contact with poison control and two distant 24-hour emergency vets. All say that he needs to be taken in for blood work and an antidote. The threshold lethal dose for a dog his size is 16g. There was 50g in the bag. Naturally this happens on a Sunday when the local vets are all closed. The good news is that the poison is slow-acting and the people I've been talking to say that unless he becomes symptomatic, we can probably wait until morning to have him seen. Right now, he's his usual active, obnoxious self so that's good. But I'm waiting on a call back from an on-call emergency vet and if they'll see him now, we're going in.

All of the professionals that I've talked to say that this happens all the time. How the fuck does this happen "all the time"? How many irresponsible, negligent dog owners are there out there, anyway?

I know one, that's for sure.

14 comments:

  1. You need to ween him off counter surfing.

    May I suggest a mouse trap or two?

    Red pepper?

    Electric fence (not kidding, electrify the counter by gluing a wire to the counter all along the top and getting a cattle fence electric transformer to electrify it when you are gone.

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  2. I hope Murphy is going to be ok.
    I found this that says the LD50 for a 5 kg dog would be 355 - 1000 g of .005% bait.
    http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/rodent/rodent_A_L/brodifacoum/brodif_prf_0185.html
    If it were warfarin based bait I'd say to start force feeding him spinach or celery (High Vit. K content)
    Please keep us posted

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  3. And don't be so hard on yourself. It's hard to remember where you have all those baits put out.
    I was mostly kidding about the spinach and celery and after reading at the following link found it isn't effective.
    http://www.petpoisonhelpline.com/2011/02/mouse-and-rat-poison-rodenticides-poisonous-to-dogs-cats/

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  4. Dogs are worse than 4-year-olds for getting into stuff. I think they're distant cousins to raccoons and 'possums. Prayin that Murph is okay!

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  5. Hope everything works out.

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  6. Hope everything works out ok.

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  7. You can only do so much... Just sayin...

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  8. Hope he is OK! Just like children you can't be everywhere at all times to keep them from danger.

    My best wishes and prayers for your friend.

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  9. Hydrogen peroxide makes them puke quick. Our dog ate a plastic bag last week and we brought it right back up. Good luck with your dog.

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  10. I hope Murph's okay.

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  11. Anonymous9:46 PM

    Holy Smoke
    I hope Murphy is ok

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  12. Don't make them puke unless a vet says its ok (or poison control), as many things can do more damage coming back up than being left to go through the system (many cleaners for example).

    And alot of those pet owners end up in that situation about like you did. A random package that got missed in clean up....a fair number of the rest of the pets end up there because a NEIGHBOR put out poison (I have a neighbor who does this).

    Glad to see the followup that he's ok!

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  13. Heidi snagged a rat poison bar once. It's not just you. She was fine and I'm sure Murphy will be too.

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  14. Our thoughts are with you. Hope you and Murphy are OK.

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