Every year, the 3rd week in March is the National Poison Control Prevention Week. It is more geared for humans, but pets can be poisoned too.
As a vet, I get to see lots of accidental exposures to poisons in dogs and cats. The most common ones are chocolate (saw one today), rat poison, insecticides, sorbitol (an artificial sweetener), and human pharmaceutics (heart meds, ADHD, birth control pills). Fortunately, I seldom see the nasty ones like Tylenol toxicity in cats, antifreeze, and marijuana toxicity in dogs,
Just like we have to be careful with medications around children, we have to do the same around pets, especially the “my dog will eat anything” kind. So lock them up, use baby latches for cupboards, and store them up high. Don’t assume a childproof bottle will keep a determined Labrador out. It won’t, because they just eat the plastic! And just because your mom’s medicines are on her nightstand, don’t assume the cat won’t explore, knock them on the floor for the Chihuahua to eat. I’ve seen that.
But accidents sometimes happen, and they we go into Poison Control mode. The first step is always:
WHAT did he eat? Not as easy as it sounds when the bottle is missing, or the chocolate bag is shredded. But it is imperative that you bring in the box/wrapper/whatever with you for a possible toxicity. We can look up the exact ingredients. I have even had clients use their cell phones to look up the product on Amazon where they bought it. That helps.
HOW MUCH did he eat? Again not always easy, but we make our best guesses.
WHEN did he eat it? I used to think this was easy, but what if you just came home at 5 pm, and found chewed up pill vials. We never know if they ate it at 8 am or 5 minutes ago.
WHO ate it? I have had numerous cases of multiple dog households where we weren’t sure WHO at the rat poison. So we had to make them ALL vomit. They we could tell. Sometimes the answer is ALL of them.
WHY did he eat it? I never ask that. But I did have one dog that got into bags of Easter Candy not once, but twice before Easter. I did wonder why the owner bought more candy and assumed the dog wouldn’t get into the pantry again.
You can’t just call 911 and get a pet poison control. The best one for pets is Animal Poison Control Center, 855-764-7661, and it costs $59. It’s the one vets use.
