24 HOURS IN THE LIFE OF A DOG MOM OR, THAT TIME MY 6 MONTH OLD PUPPY ATE RAT POISON
Izzie is proving to be just as mischievous as Juno was. A couple months ago, she gave us a good scare and earned her first emergency phone call to the vet. Here’s a recap of what those 24 hours were like and a glimpse into why this dog is giving me grey hairs.
Thursday:
6:15pm – I arrive home from work to find Mark and Izzie are gone. I assume he took her to the farm to run. Perfect. I take advantage of a dog-free house and frantically start sweeping the floors. I hope I can get it done before they get back and Izzie starts attacking the broom like she’s trying to save me from it. (In her defense, I do hate cleaning – maybe she can sense that and hanging off the end of the broom by her teeth is her way of helping me out. It’s not helpful.)
6:22pm – my phone rings. It’s Mark. He’s yelling at me to “call the vet! call the vet!” I have no idea what happened or what I’m supposed to say to said vet once I’m on the phone with them, but that’s all he’s giving me. I morph into a 911 operator and calmly ask him questions to get all the relevant info before I start to worry.
Me: “what happened?”
Mark: “mouse poison! She ate mouse poison!”
Me: “just now?”
Mark: “yes. I just went in the shop for a second and when I turned around, she had it spread all over the floor.”
Me: “how much did she eat?”
Mark: “I don’t know!”
Me: “ok, what exactly was in it? Do you have the package? What was the active ingredient?”
Mark: “shit, hold on a second I have to go back in and look.” He rustles around for a bit and then comes back on the phone and rambles off a bunch of words I don’t understand.
Me: “just send me a picture.”
6:28pm – I call the vet. It’s after hours so I get a voicemail message with a number to call in case of emergencies. I call the second number. All I get is another message saying the vet isn’t available for emergencies and to call an alternate clinic.
While looking for numbers and listening to messages I’m simultaneously googling bromadiolone, the active ingredient in the poison. Always the wrong thing to do during a medical emergency, googling just makes me worry more when words like “highly toxic” and “immanent death” stand out as I skim websites. The only saving grace is that it appears this particular poison brings on a slow death rather than a fast one and that a positive outcome is possible with quick intervention.
I find a number for another place and dial the phone for a third time. I finally get a human on the phone. The on-call vet doesn’t seem nearly as concerned about the situation as I am at this point. I can’t tell if that’s because it’s not actually that serious or if she just doesn’t feel like changing out of her comfy pants and heading back down to the clinic. She recommends inducing vomiting with hydrogen peroxide and bringing Izzie in to get checked the next day.
6:42pm – Mark and Izzie get home. She comes bounding in the house like her usual self. I already have the peroxide and a syringe on the kitchen counter and relay the vet’s instructions to Mark. She had said it can be difficult to get dogs to take peroxide because they don’t like the taste so I’m ready for a fight. I get Mark to hold her while I give her a dose. The weirdo laps it up like she’s getting a treat.
6:48pm – Izzie’s stomach starts making funny noises and she beelines for the backyard through the dog door. We rush out into the dark snowy night in slippers and sweaters armed with a flashlight. We spend the next ten minutes following her around the backyard shining a spotlight on her while she expels the contents of her stomach onto the snow. It starts out cotton candy blue with green flecks of rat poison throughout. By the fifth round, it’s pretty much clear and we feel confident she got most of it out. Mark goes around the yard with a shovel, scooping up the candy-coloured snow to get rid of it so she doesn’t eat it again because, well, dogs are gross and do shit like that.
We breathe a sigh of relief and spend the evening watching her sleep in her favorite chair, hoping she’ll be okay.
Friday
7:45am – I wake up and open my eyes to see that Izzie is sharing my pillow. We’re basically swapping breath as she snores softly beside me. I’m simultaneously grossed out and think it’s the cutest thing ever. I hop out of bed eager to call the vet clinic as soon as it opens to set up an appointment.
8:01am – I call our regular clinic and explain what happened the night before. I go over what she ate, the instructions we got from the other vet and how the night went. The receptionist seems surprised that the vet hadn’t wanted to see her the night before and tells me I can bring her in right away.
9:00am – we arrive at the clinic. Izzie is her usual nutty self and spends the first few minutes pulling, lunging, and jumping all over whoever gets close enough for her to reach while ignoring every command I give her. I consider the irony of feeling the urge to strangle her and yet bringing her here to save her life.
We go in an examine room and the vet comes in to talk to us. She gets all the information and assures me that Izzie will be fine. She wants to put her on a vitamin K supplement to counteract any poison that may have remained in her system and says they’ll do the first does by injection immediately.
The vet tech comes in with a needle and syringe that looks like it’s made for an elephant, not a dog. They warn me that it may sting a bit and ask me to help hold her still. They barely even pierce her skin with the needle and Izzie proceeds to put on the most dramatic display of a temper tantrum that I’ve ever witnessed. There’s yiking, yelping, and flailing about. She gets out of our grasp and runs for the other side of the room. She flops herself on the floor and scrambles under a chair, almost knocking over a decorative ceramic pot in the process. She absolutely refuses to come out from under the safety of the chair despite coaxing with treats and my promises that it will be fine.
We finally manage to wrangle her out from under the chair and try again. Same outcome. The vet gives up on the injection and goes to get a bowl of food to mix the vitamin K into. As soon as the needle is gone, Izzie comes out and scarfs the food. Good enough.
Since this poison prevents clotting, the vet advises that we should try to “keep her calm” for the next couple of weeks to avoid any injuries or internal bleeding until we know for sure the poison has left her system. She gives me a sympathetic look along with her instructions, knowing full well that the words “Izzie” and “calm” don’t go together.
10:04am – we head out to the front desk where Izzie waits patiently for once in her life while I almost choke on the $281.16 bill. Apparently vitamin K is expensive AF.
10:08am – I put Izzie in the car and offer her a treat to alleviate my dog-mom guilt for the traumatic vet experience. She refuses to take food from me, presumably knowing full well that this will just make me feel even worse.
She spends the hour-long car ride to Saskatoon trying to get comfortable in the backseat and turning her head away every time I reach back with a bacon-flavoured peace offering. She’s not letting this one go easily. I try to explain to her that it’s her own damn fault for eating the rat poison in the first place. She doesn’t seem to care.
11:15am – we get to the city and I take her out for a pee. She proceeds to pull me down a snow-covered incline where I fall in a snowbank in front of a parking lot full of people. I decide its time to invest in a head halter.
I head for the pet store and take her with me because, you know, socialization and exposure to new experiences is good for young dogs and all that shit. She immediately makes me regret my decision. As soon as she realizes where we’re going, she starts pulling like the lead dog of a team trying to win the Iditarod. I give a few feeble “heel” commands to no avail. It’s like I don’t even exist.
Once inside the store she carries on pulling, whining, and jumping at me while I read the backs of 15 different head halter packages trying to figure out what size and style is going to work. She actually obeys a few “sit” commands which feel like teeny tiny little victories.
A staff member comes around the corner and asks if he can pet her. I say yes but warn him that she might jump which, of course, she does and proceeds to rip the cord out of his headset battery pack. She then grabs a stuffed rabbit off the display shelf and I decide it’s time to get-the-eff out of this store.
I head to the checkout where I unload my basket and apologetically hand over the rabbit which is now covered in dog slobber. The cashier scans it and nicely rips the tags off so I can give it right back to Izzie who then lays down on the carpet directly in front of the automatic doors to chew on her new toy. She seems to be perfectly content to lay there while the doors open and close over and over again. I have to basically drag her out to the parking lot.
She drops her rabbit in the middle of the driving lane and stops traffic while I go back to pick it up. She takes advantage of my distraction to shove her head into the bag I’m carrying to see what other prizes she scored on our trip to the pet store. The bag rips and I shuffle across the parking lot and to my car while trying to contain the contents of the bag and keep a hold of the dog and the slobbery rabbit. There’s a lot of swearing.
1:22pm – we’re back on the highway headed for home. My pet store bribery worked and Izzie is accepting treats from me again. She curls up in the backseat and sleeps the rest of the way home.
2:56pm – we arrive at my parents’ farm after I decide that I should try and get Izzie some exercise. She’s used to having free reign out there which often includes running full speed into buildings, bounding over and around various objects, and sneaking through barbed wire fences. None of that sounds like a good idea after the vet’s concerns about any potential bleeding. I decide to put her new head halter to use and get her out into the field before setting her free in hopes that she’ll be less likely to hurt herself in a wide open space.
I slip the head halter over Izzie’s face and she immediately starts throwing a fit which includes pawing at her nose, rubbing her face on the ground, and bucking like a bronco. It’s quite dramatic. The antics continue for the entire walk out to the field. She isn’t pulling anymore but I can’t decide if this is any better.
Once out in the open I set her free and watch as she frolics in the snow, runs zoomies, and tracks the scent of anything that recently passed through the area. She’s in her element and is having a blast. I spend the entire time worrying about whether or not she’s overdoing it.
4:17pm – we finally make it home where I get Izzie in the house and unload the car. She strategically places herself exactly where I need to step the entire time I’m unloading the shopping bags and I nearly trip over her multiple times. Once I’m done she happily goes and plays with her new stuffed rabbit she picked out at the pet store earlier in the day.
5:02pm – Mark gets home from work. I relay the events of the day to him. He finds the story about her in the vet clinic particularly amusing. I remain unimpressed.
6:15pm – I’m exhausted. The last 24 hours have been a blur of concern, frustration, and never-ending entertainment thanks to Izzie. She climbs up on the couch beside me, curls up and falls asleep with her head in my lap. She sure is cute when she’s sleeping and it’s a good thing too…
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