Pet Corner: Taking fast action with poisoned pet saves the day

Last modified: Wednesday, August 8, 2007 1:21 PM CDT

Pet Corner: Taking fast action with poisoned pet saves the day

By DEBBIE JAHNKE

Special to the Herald

Had a busy day at the clinic last week. We were short on staff, and I was running late all morning. Josie, the technician I was working with, brought an unhappy looking Bassett hound named ‘Sadie’ into the treatment room and told me she was transferred from the emergency clinic.

She brought Sadie back right away because she didn’t look good. The emergency clinic suspected she had eaten rat poison.

I looked at Sadie’s gums, and they were very pale. She had lost a lot of blood. She was breathing very rapidly. Most likely she lost blood into her lungs. We put Sadie into a cage where she was watched by the staff, and I went in to talk to the owner. In the exam room is a tired looking mom and a tired looking boy of about 15 years old.

Turns out a family member is in the hospital and they’ve been spending all their time with him. Sadie will eat just about anything. And she had spent a lot of time alone at home with all the stuff going on.

The owner doesn’t have any rat poison, but thought maybe someone had thrown some over the fence. (We hear this a lot, but I don’t think it really happens that often. Dogs are pretty creative about finding things to eat.)

I told her that Sadie needed a blood transfusion, and that I couldn’t do that here. She would need to transfer to the University Clinic. She said she couldn’t go there because they wouldn’t take payments, and she was tapped from her visit to the emergency clinic.

Oh boy. What to do?

Mom is in tears, and son is near tears. Ok, I said we’d do the best we could and the owner left Sadie with us for care.

I locked Sadie in a kennel and didn’t let her out. Not even to go to the bathroom. Why? Because she could bleed from taking a walk. Anticoagulant rat baits work by inhibiting vitamin K. This vitamin is necessary for the liver to make blood proteins that allow blood to clot when an injury occurs.

So, even taking a walk, or coughing could cause Sadie to bleed uncontrollably. We continued giving Sadie Vitamin K, which the emergency clinic had started.

It takes about two days for rat bait to cause severe bleeding, and once bleeding starts, it takes vitamin K about two days to replace the blood clotting proteins and stop bleeding. Sadie had a couple critical days ahead of her.

The owner did not authorize a blood transfusion due to cost. So we waited. Sadie looked pretty rough all that day. She ended up staying overnight. Which was good for her, as she needed to stay still.

She did OK overnight, and looked better in the morning. Her clotting times had nearly returned to normal the next evening. We kept her in the kennel one more night just to be safe. She was able to go home the following day, and her family was very happy.

On her way home, she ambled slowly into the exam room, which her family said is her normal demeanor. That may have been what saved her life! If she was a very active dog, she might have bled more than she did.

Now she is taking vitamin K for the next month, because rat poison stays in the body for several weeks. And the owners know she’s at risk of doing it again. Rat bait must taste pretty good, because dogs often seek it out once they’ve gotten into it the first time.

The good thing is, we can catch this before symptoms occur. If its been only a few hours, we can make your dog vomit, and get most of the bait out of the system, and then start vitamin K therapy to prevent symptoms if needed.

Dogs showing symptoms are in dire need of attention. That blood transfusion would have replaced Sadie’s clotting factors in a matter of an hour or so, versus two to three days with vitamin K alone. It would have also saved Sadie from two days of being in critical condition.

I’m glad this story had a happy ending! It sounds like the family member who is in the hospital is going to be OK too. And Sadie is back to her old self.

Dr. Debbie Jahnke is a small animal relief veterinarian living in Hastings, Minn. She works in clinics in Wisconsin and Minnesota filling in for other veterinarians. She is originally from Cadott, and continues to work at clinics in Chippewa County. Send your pet questions to Jahnke at drdebjahnkedvm@yahoo.com.