What to do if Your Pet Ingested Something Poisonous

Pets, especially dogs, love to get into your food and cleaning supplies. They can’t read warning labels, and even if they could, would it stop some of them from lapping up antifreeze off your garage floor? Maybe not. You can’t completely keep your pets away from possible poisons in your home (or anywhere), so let’s break down the poison symptoms and what to do if your pet ingested something poisonous.

First, before we go over the common symptoms of poisoning, you have to remember to try and stay calm. Your pet will feed off your panicked, nervous energy, possibly worsening their condition. There may be times when you are unable to get emergency help for your pet. If you stay calm and know what to do, you will be able to provide care that could save them.

Symptoms

Before you take action, make sure that your pet’s symptoms match common poisoning symptoms:

• Disorientation—your pet doesn’t seem to know where he or she is or has trouble walking around your home like normal.
• Vomiting—sometimes you can see what the pet ate to make it sick in the vomit. You should watch for unproductive vomiting, or retching, as well.
• Seizures
• Excessive salivation
• Whining

Known or Unknown Poison

If you’ve identified any or all of the above symptoms in your pet, the next step is to call a vet and try to figure out what your pet ate to make it sick. From there, the proper procedure depends on the poison ingested.

If you know what your pet ate, have the container in front of you when you call the vet. Treatment from there will depend on the ingredients of the substance. Your vet might advise you to call the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center (APCC: 1-800-426-4435).

If you don’t know what the poison is, but you suspect that your pet was poisoned, the safest and wisest course of action is to seek immediate veterinary attention. It’s crucial that anti-poison treatment is administered as soon as possible to stop the rapid absorption of the substance. Learn from your vet to know the best anti-poison treatment to administer.

Common Poisonous Household Items

Prevent poisonous substances from being ingested by your pets by securing or otherwise keeping your pet away from these common household items:

• Antifreeze: Many pets are drawn to antifreeze because it smells and tastes sweet to them. Even the ingestion of small amounts can cause neurological damage, kidney damage, and death. Symptoms: staggering, excessive drinking, seizures, and lethargy.
• Cannabis products: Cannabis has much of the same effects on pets that it has on humans, only much more intense, perhaps dangerously so. Symptoms: bobble-headedness, hyper-excitability, excessive drooling, tremors, dribbling urine, ataxia, seizures, and dilated pupils.
• Chocolate: How your pet reacts to chocolate sometimes depends on the type of chocolate ingested. Milk chocolate will usually upset the gastrointestinal tract and clear up, but baker’s chocolate can cause nervous stimulation, tremors, rapid heart rate, and seizures.
• Rodent poison: This can cause bleeding and serious neurological damage.
• Acetaminophen: The active ingredient in common pain-relief medications like Tylenol can cause red blood cell damage and liver damage. It’s especially toxic to cats.
• Toxic Plants: Some plants can cause GI distress, others can cause organ damage. Easter lily, tiger lily, rhododendron, dumbcane, dieffenbachia, mistletoe, oleander, castor beans, rhubarb, iris, and larkspur are all types of plants harmful to pets. Make sure you keep your pets away from your fertilizer and plant food, too.
• Toxic Human foods: While most dogs would insist otherwise, you should think twice about the table scraps you feed your pet. Be careful with alcohol, coffee, broccoli, tea, garlic, mushrooms, anything with mold on it, onions, tomato leaves and stems, salt, and yeast. Pets can also choke rather easily on foods like grapes, nuts, and the pits of plums, peaches, and apricots.

You should make sure your garbage can is secured from your pets, too. Many toxic materials can be found there, from cleaning chemicals to moldy and rotten food.

 

Remember, the best thing you can do if your pet ingested something poisonous is to seek emergency veterinary care or advice as soon as possible.

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