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Dog Rat Poison Story

Our dog Hanna, a miniature schnauzer, rat poison ingestion story. Our dog Hannah was over...

Posted by JHChicago

Our dog Hanna, a miniature schnauzer, rat poison ingestion story. Our dog Hannah was over at my parents house on a Saturday and without our knowledge ingested some amount of rat poison she dug up in their back yard.

7 days later she suddenly started limping. We though she might of sprained her shoulder or something so we gave it a day. The next day, Sunday, her conditioned worsened, she had trouble walking and getting up. We decided that we'd take her to the vet on Monday.

On Monday we took her to the vet and it was determined that she probably had a sprained shoulder and she was prescribed pain meds/aspirin. On Tuesday, her condition didn't improve and by Tuesday afternoon we noticed that her entire under-belly was red and bruised looking and her skin was thick like it was full of liquid. We immediately returned to the vet. They could not figure out what it was. So by chance the vet asked if she had eaten some rat poison, but we didn't know since Hannah is usually not an outside dog and when she's outside she's always under our supervision.

I called my parents to ask if they kept rat poison in their back yard and they confirmed that indeed they had some in one outta the way spot and after further examination it looked like the rat poison had been dug up. So we concluded that Hannah had eaten rat poison - 9 days prior!

The vet immediately ran blood work to check her clotting and determined that indeed she had ingested the rat poison. The redness on her belly was internal bleeding. She was immediately given Vitamin K and we took her home. The next couple of days were more of the same - no improvement. She became very lethargic and would not eat or drink, had bloody diarrhea, . We took her back to vet on Thursday and after more tests it was determined that she was severely anemic, had developed pancreatitis, had low red blood cell count, and was jaundiced. Her immune system was in shock and hyperactive as well. She was put on fluids was given steroids and additional tests in the next couple of days confirmed she was a getting a little better but not outta the woods.

Hannah remained at the vet until the next Monday, 15 days after having ingested the rat poison. We brought her home. By this time she had lost a lot of weight and was still very lethargic but could move around. She refused to eat and vomited all day. We took her to the vet again and she received some fluids and anti-nausea medicine. On Tuesday morning again I tried to feed her and she ate but a morsel of rice, by Tuesday afternoon her energy magically came back. Although still very skinny, she was back to eating and drinking tons of water due to medicines and vitamin K.

By Thrusday, 18 days after having ingested the rat poison, Hannah was finally her old self. Lots of energy, eating, drinking, playing. Her internal bleeding was finally clearing up on her under-belly.

We were so lucky that our dog survived this episode. I'm not sure we could of helped her sooner and since her initial symptoms were confusing it made it more difficult.View Thread

Posted byJHChicago

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