Safety First! Rat Poison, Second.

Hi Guys,

Libby here.

A few months ago, I told the story of a brave doggie named Rosie who had the unfortunate mishap of consuming large amounts of chocolate. Now class, what did we learn from this? All together now: Chocolate is bad for dogs. Good boys (and girls).

Today, we have a similar tale to tell. Recently, a sick kitty was brought into the PPAC with a history of vomiting and not eating for three days (and if you're a pet owner-which presumably most of you are-then you know how uncommon it is for an animal to not be into their daily meals!)

Anyway, when Dr. Holloway took a look at him, she found that he was a bit dehydrated and lethargic (tired in layman's speak!)

As a precautionary measure, they decided to hospitalize the cat for observation.
The next day, symptoms had not changed and when vomiting persisted, Dr. H. ran some barium (a liquid that would help outline any foreign objects in an X-ray) through the cat's digestive tract, to see if the young cat had eaten anything he was not supposed to.

Something appeared to be in the stomach so exploratory surgery was planned and the kitty was given fluids under his skin for support. The following day (the day of the surgery), the kitty was bleeding from many orifices, including the place where he had been stuck to receive fluids.

Based on these symptoms, Dr. H. thought it might be rat poison and so began treating with vitamin K (the antidote), and submitted blood tests to look for coagulation disorder (blood clotting). After a couple of days, the cat began to feel better and was released to his home with continued vitamin K treatment.

The moral of the story is, if you have dogs or cats, make sure to leave rat poisons (or any other poison or chemicals) in places where they cannot find them or come in contact with them. As much as you may be trying to keep your house rat free, you want to make sure that the animals you do want to live with you, can continue to do so healthily!

Til' next time!

Libby.